Police Department: Citizen Security and Safety for the Easter Holidays
Fitzroy Yearwood
Road traffic accidents along major thoroughfares are among the leading causes of death for Belizeans. Since the beginning of the year, a number of incidents have been reported and despite all safety measures being put in place, the toll continues to grow. This Easter weekend will see a significant spike in domestic tourism, as families will be hitting the road or the open water en route to their destination of choice. That in mind, the Belize Police Department has gone into overdrive in an effort to ensure citizen security and safety. Inspector Fitzroy Yearwood tells News Five that police intend to put a lid on crime and violence, as well as to safeguard the wellbeing of all vacationers.
Insp. Fitzroy Yearwood, Public Relations Officer, Eastern Division
“Countrywide, we have embarked on our Easter anti-crime patrol. For Eastern Division North, today we’ll be having officers from the Traffic [Department] and Traffic Support Unit along with members of the regular relief handing out safety tips pamphlets in this area and Precinct Four also and on both islands, San Pedro and Caye Caulker. We have removed some of our people who normally work in offices and so forth and you will see more boots on the ground for the entire length of this Easter holiday and we will continue this operation up until March thirtieth. We know that all our schools are out right now, our sixth forms, our high schools and primary schools and we know that more children will be out and have more time on the streets so we have also upped our patrols. We have more foot patrol on the ground, bicycle, motorbikes, motor vehicle patrols and we know that these kids want to have fun so we know that they will be out in the night time. You will see more police presence around our parks or entertainment hubs and so forth but we ask the general public to make it their own sense of responsibility to make sure that their children are safe. We cannot discourage you from going swimming but at the same time we can only ask them to be very safe and make sure that their children are safe. We know that we have the open areas like B.T.L. Park where children like to go and swim, the Baron Bliss area, even this area not too far from here in the Buttonwood Bay area. So we have patrols and while we cannot provide lifeguards, we try our best to discourage kids if we see them unsupervised in these areas. We know that usually during the Lent time, especially on Good Friday it is extremely hot and a lot of people come out to swim so we try our best to have adequate police officers out there to make our citizens safe.”
The robust plan of action will remain in effect until the end of the month.
