City Resident Critical After Weekend Shooting

Clifford Anderson

Meanwhile, another Belize City youth is tonight clinging to life at the K.H.M.H. after he was shot by a lone gunman on Friday night. Police say that around ten p.m., twenty-six-year-old Clifford Anderson, a resident of a Neal Pen Road, was shot to the back as he walked through an alley near the basketball court on Neal Pen Road. Anderson was rushed to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in a critical condition. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Twenty-six-year-old Clifford Anderson is tonight in a critical condition at the K.H.M.H. after he was reportedly shot on Friday night by a gunman that came up from behind as he walked through an alley off Neal Pen Road Extension. An injured Anderson ran about a hundred yards from his attacker, but collapsed near this lamppost. The bullet has damaged his organs and Anderson is fighting for his life.

Dawn Phillips, Mother of Shooting Victim

“I just run out and gone fi see him on the crime scene. When I look, before I get halfway, they tell me that dehn done rush ahn to the hospital. So I run and I drop and I get up and like I feel like I couldn’t go anymore. I just started to cry and they tell me that ih done gone dah hospital. So we gone dah emergency and the doctor just admit him in. He got shot like two times; he get it like in his back coming into his belly. It burst in and intestines, spine and mess up one of his spine; so like he is in a critical condition right now. So I just want everybody to support me with a prayer and I know he will recover.”

Chester Williams

But why would anyone want to kill Anderson? Assistant Commissioner of Police Chester Williams says that the shooting may have been triggered by a recent incident.

ACP Chester Williams, Regional Commander, Eastern Division South

“Apparently there was some incident that might have taken place sometime yesterday or day before and that was what triggered what took place last night. And it goes back to what I’ve always been saying. Many of the shootings that we are having of recent are not as a result of old beef, but rather things that just happens. And it just develops so quickly.”

According to his mother, Dawn Phillips, although her son has had run-ins with the law, he had changed when the shooter took advantage of him.

Dawn Phillips

Dawn Phillips

“Dah as they say noh…when yo di try change yo life and yo di behave and settle down and thing, dah then they come fi come and take yo life because everybody who know my son, know that my son mi di change ih life, regardless of what and what. Yo dah wah mother and everybody dah wah mother fi dehn pikney.”

But Anderson was critically injured and needs to undergo another round of surgery.

Dawn Phillips

“Ih need ten pints of blood; that the most important thing he needs for a surgery. And that is what I am trying to work on because then he is to go into the surgery this afternoon because I noh get the amount of blood that ih need.”

Duane Moody

“Is there a particular blood that they are asking for?”

Dawn Phillips

“Well A-plus blood; but the doctor say ih really don’t matter weh kind. Ih just need the blood fi deal with mi son.”

No one has been detained for the shooting. Duane Moody for News Five.