Heredia Speaks on Crime on the Islands

Manuel Heredia

The recent spate of violent crimes on San Pedro and Caye Caulker has prompted the command of the Belize Police Department to revisit its crime-fighting strategy. While additional personnel have been deployed to both islands, there has also been an increase in the number of vehicular patrols.  The input of Area Representative Manuel Heredia has also resulted in a reshuffling of officers in San Pedro.  In the aftermath of the death of eighteen-year-old Hilberto Sotz at the hands of officers in Caye Caulker, a complete reorganization of the station command has been undertaken.

Manuel Heredia, Area Representative, Belize Rural South

“What we have done, as the area representative of both San Pedro and Caye Caulker, we have, the command of the police force they have really did some strategic planning and have increased the number of police, not only that but also they have increased the number of vehicles that were needed to do the enforcement over there.  In San Pedro particularly, transportation was one of the major factors whenever they were called to two or three different places probably in a short time, they couldn’t respond immediately.  Today, I am proud to say that they have a fleet of seven vehicles on the island and in Caye Caulker we have also added additional transportation and we have made major changes in command also in both areas.  They recently moved a superintendent to San Pedro to assist Mr. Jemmott who was the commanding officer.  Likewise in Caye Caulker, for the first time now they have a superintendent that is in charge of the island.  Before it was just a sergeant that was in charge.  So, many changes have been put in place and we have seen from this that crime and so has really started to settle and I’m hoping that we will continue to do our best to make sure that crime, at least we cannot say that we will be free of crime but at least minimize the number of crimes that are there because the tourism industry is a very fragile industry and if we do not take care of these situations we can lose it.”

According to Heredia, the changes are necessary to ensure safety on the islands.