Ride by shooting wounds four

Belize City police say they still do not know what caused four persons to be shot at the corner of King Street and Amara Avenue around midnight on Saturday. The shooting victims, identified as twenty-five year old Ronald Crawford, thirty-one year old Wilhelm Elliott, twenty-two year old Eleno Requeña and thirty-one year old Denbert Jones, were standing on the sidewalk talking just a few yards from the Lion King Club when a young man rode by on a bicycle and opened fire on the group. Crawford received a gunshot wound to the back and remains in a critical condition at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Elliott was shot in his right ankle, while three of the bullets found their way into Requeña’s left knee, left thigh and right shinbone. Jones was shot in his right ankle. None of the men would talk to News 5 about the incident, but reports suggest that at least one of them knew the shooter and is believed to have been involved in an argument that took place earlier that night by the club.

G. Michael Reid, Police Press Officer

“We are not getting much information from the spectators and people who were there. We are right now doing an intensive investigation trying to ascertain exactly what occurred. There are rumours that in fact it was previous altercation that led to this incident, but so far we’ve gotten nobody willing to come forward and tell us exactly what occurred. What this does though, Jackie, is highlight the need to get the guns off the street. These guys are not necessarily marksmen and it’s not every time that they hit the people that they are aiming at. We don’t know if in fact that all four people were the intended victims of this shooting, but all four people are at the hospital.”

Police believe it was a nine millimetre weapon that was used in the shooting.