Police Say Murder Count is 142

Full details are to come from the Police Department, but Belize’s rate of murders remains high. Official statistics from the Department as revealed by Minister of State Elodio Aragon Junior at Friday’s House meeting, confirm a total of one hundred and forty-two murders countrywide, an increase of four from 2016’s figure of one hundred and thirty-eight. Most media houses including News Five have the tally at one hundred and forty-four, one shy of the all-time record of one hundred and forty-five recorded in 2012.  Divided by Belize’s population of three hundred and sixty-six thousand, the murder rate is just under thirty-nine per one hundred thousand, above the threshold for civil war established by international agencies.

Elodio Aragon Jr.

Elodio Aragon Jr., Area Rep., Orange Walk East

“The murder rate – in 2016, we had a hundred and thirty-eight murders; in 2017, we have had a hundred and forty-two murders. That is the official statistics from the Police Department, and that will be issued to the public [at] a press conference next week and also they will address other issues, that the media have concern in terms of the disparity between what the media say is the amount of murders and what the police say is the amount of murders.”

The count does not include the deaths of Kimberley Stephens, the American tourist found near her rent vehicle in Placencia in December, or Karl Leslie, a Hattieville man found with trauma to his head found dead at home.