Public suicide stuns city
The Caribbean, according to foreign myth, is supposed to be one of those stress free places where the smiling natives live happy, carefree lives. Well, we all know differently…and this morning the stress that affects the lives of most of us at one time or another reached a point where one Belize City resident could no longer cope.
Gilbert Arnold’s Mother
“Why mi baby do that?” (Screams) “Why you do it?”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Questions the family of thirty-two year old Gilbert Arnold Jr., better known as “Toad”, will never really find answers to. Just after ten this morning, Arnold, armed with a nine millimetre handgun, shot himself in the head, in front of this phone booth at the corner of Fairweather Street and Mex Avenue.
According to eyewitnesses, Arnold had been having relationship problems with his girlfriend of six years, identified as nineteen-year-old Michelle “Mickey” Trapp. The couple share a child. Friends say that this morning it was a sad, frustrated and angry Gilbert Arnold that went into Trapp’s house on Rivero Street.
Sigmund “Sarge” Trapp, Eyewitness
“He took out Mickey and they came out. Mickey ran in front of him and tumble down about twenty-five yards from the gate on the knee. After that, I saw him pick her up from the back of her shirt and they came around this side. So when they came around this side, we relax because we thought it was only a discussion they were going through.”
But things got scary when Arnold pulled a handgun from his pant’s waist and threatened to shoot Michelle before turning the weapon on himself. Residents say things were quiet for about ten minutes then the sound of a single gunshot echoed through the neighbourhood. Arnold fired at least two more shots, promising to make good on his threats. That’s when his friends showed up and tried to talk him down.
Sigmund “Sarge” Trapp
“So we came over and we stood about fifteen yards from where he was standing at the phone booth with the gun to his head and holding Mickey right. And we ask him to please mek he noh really do this right? Anyway, he kept saying “Sarge, I get enough I can’t tek no more of this, I wah kill myself. But I’m calling a friend of mine at C.I.B. fu mek he come over.”
“We stood here for about a half an hour, trying to help him, trying to talk to him with other friends weh came by and thing. But eventually, his father came along and drove up here. He sight his father and when he sight he father, he tell he father not to come any closer cause he wah kill he too, which I leave from where I was and came over and I talk to the father and I tell him, please go. And at the same time when his father went away, was going away, I went back and stood where we were all standing just there, and the same time, he just fire the shot and he just fell.”
The bullet entered the left side of his head and Arnold died on the spot. This was the gruesome scene family members and curious spectators found when they heard the news.
Arnold’s friends say while they knew the young man was troubled, they never suspected things would escalate this far.
Sigmund “Sarge” Trapp
“He state to me that he have his girlfriend and he cannot put up with no more of the trouble that he and his girlfriend is going through, which we as neighbours we observe that but that is not part of our problem you know? But I always speak to him because he is like a son to me. From the time I know him from he was very young, he always come to my house…we sit, we talk, we eat, we drink… He dah wah very hard working young man, he hustle hard, he very dedicated, he very friendly and he very, very nice in the neighbourhood. When he is in the neighbourhood, he mek everybody feel good because he have a very loud voice and whenever he talk, he would hail us from any distance he is and always make us feel at heart. So what happened this morning, even me, I’m very bereaved about it, because dah wah loss weh I will never forget.”
Michelle Trapp was not physically injured in the incident.
