Family Mourns Murdered Bartender
Patricia Romero
Family and friends are grieving the untimely death of twenty-nine year old Edwin Ixpatac, a Cayo resident who was brutally beaten to the head and abdomen while in police detention. And as they cope with their loss, they search for answers as to how and why the waiter, who had moved to San Pedro merely three months ago, was killed. Three police officers have been arraigned for Ixpatac’s murder but that brings no consolation to the family. News Five’s Duane Moody has an update to the weekend murder.
Patricia Romero, Waitress, Caprice Bar & Grill [File: March 8th, 2016]
“The saddest part of everything is that he died alone. We still can’t get information of how he arrived from the Polyclinic to the K.H.M.H. Well we haven’t gotten that information as yet. And it is sad because he was lonely. When he passed away there was no one in the room except for the doctor; he and the doctor.”
Edwin Ixpatac
Duane Moody, Reporting
As the family and friends of twenty-nine year old Edwin Ixpatac mourn his untimely death, they are still baffled as to why their loved one was badly beaten to the head and abdomen, killed, allegedly at the hands of three police officers attached to the Coastal Executive Unit.
Olga Ixpatac, Sister of Deceased
“This is the first incident that I’ve heard about this. And I know that he drinks, but to lose him. I don’t believe that. I don’t have words to say. The police doesn’t know my brother because he just moved to San Pedro lately. We were working in Placencia me and him and I was close to him. The reason he moved to San Pedro was to find a different job; he wanted to leave Placencia behind because he was tired of being in Placencia and so he moved to San Pedro to live a different life. And from he left Placencia, I don’t see him anymore than chat on Facebook and he told me he had a girlfriend and his life is going on.”
Olga Ixpatac
Edwin, a father of two children, relocated from Placencia to San Pedro late last year and took up employment as a waiter at the Caprice Bar and Grill for the past three months. His family did not see him since he left Placencia; that is until Sunday, three days after his attack, as he lay on his dying bed on a ventilator inside the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
Olga Ixpatac
“We received a call the Thursday; I was at work and they said that my brother was in an accident, but nobody told us what until his common-law-wife called us and that’s how we find out. When we got here, that’s the news that we got that he was in a coma. The next day morning, they called us that he died. They just say the police did it and that’s all. They don’t say nothing. Over there, he has a little brother, but he was ignorant of it. Even he was living there and he didn’t know what was going on there.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, a day after Edwin succumbed to blunt head and body injuries, Police Constables Reydel Teck, Jahsimir Cob and Romelio Logan took the walk of shame at the Belize City Magistrate’s Court in Belize City. Law enforcers, who swore to protect residents, were taken before the court for a most heinous crime, murder. It is a black eye for the police department because surveillance camera reportedly captured when the three officers beat Ixpatac inside the police station before placing him in a cell.
Hilberto Romero
Supt. Hilberto Romero, O.C., CIB [File: March 8th, 2016]
“While at the police station, efforts were being made to take off a handcuff from his hands…one of the hands was removed and the other could not be removed. At some point there was a confrontation between the deceased and three officers attached to the San Pedro Police Station. We have the incident on video footage. The male person was then placed inside the cell block and at some point between six-thirty and seven a.m. on the said Friday, he was found unconscious in the cell block.”
The Professional Standards Branch of the Department confirmed that there was administrative neglect and as such, Sergeant Raymond Berry, the supervisor on duty at the time of the incident, was also place on interdiction along with the trio. Eastern Division North Regional Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police Dezerie Phillips says that the department has zero tolerance for wrongdoing from police officers.
Dezerie Phillips
ACP Dezerie Phillips, Regional Commander, Eastern Division North
“The Ministry of National Security of course and the police department is very saddened by this incident. We know that a lot of persons have been hurt by this incident, not only the family and friends of the deceased for which we offer our deepest condolence, but as well the family of the police officers and the community of San Pedro and the wider society is also grieving and hurting by an incident like this. But I just want to assure the general public that the police department is doing everything in our powers to ensure that a fair, swift and transparent investigation is being conducted.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
Interdiction is not enough. If intel is leading to enough evidence then they should be stripped immediately off their salary and government on behalf of the police department deserves to compensate the family. That will somehow give the family some sense of justice and teach them that their heinous acts have devastating consequences.
And again, lack of supervision of unprofessional, poorly trained police officers has resulted in a citizen’s death. When will GoB ever straighten out the PD?
THE MUST DISTURBING THING TO WATCH IS HOW THEY ARE PARADED OUT OF COURT WITH NO HAND CUFF AND A SMILE ON THEIR FACE WHERE IS THE PRIDE OF THEIR PROFESSION?
THEY SHOULD BE STRIPPED FROM THE DEPARTMENT CHARGED AS A CIVILIAN LATER AND THE SUPERVISOR IN DUTY SHOULD ALSO BE FIRED AND STRIPPED OF HIS DUTY. THIS IS WAY OUT OF HAND. WHAT PISSES ME MORE IS WHEN THEY SAY “WE WANT TO ENSURE THE PUBLIC THAT BLA BLA BLA WILL BE DEALT WITH FAIR. THAT IS B.S SIMPLE AS THAT SAME THING OVER AND OVER WE WANT JUSTICE TO BE SERVED FAIRLY AND VISIBLE.