Gun violence claims another life in Bz. City
This month alone, there have been six reported homicides in Belize City…more grim statistics to add to what is already a long list of deaths that have taken place in only seven months. According to police sources, since January of this year forty-five people have been killed and most of the perpetrators are still at large. Over the weekend, yet another Belize City man was gunned down, and as News 5’s Jacqueline Woods reports, the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.
Phyllis Lewis, Harrison’s Aunt
“He had a big heart, an open heart fi everybody. He noh too busy fi di family, he noh too busy fi even strangers. He has something fi do and you need something, he wah left what he have to do or go and tend to you.”
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Phyllis Lewis remembering her nephew, twenty-one year old Harrison Thomas. Shortly after 9:00 on Friday night, Thomas was by Payless Store on Jasmine Street when two young men on bicycles rode up to the unsuspecting victim and shot him. The bullet wound its way through Thomas’ body before it finally lodged itself in the right side of his rib cage. Some four hours later, Thomas died while undergoing surgery at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. The police say Thomas was not a troublemaker, and according to the young man’s family, Thomas was mistakenly killed.
Phyllis Lewis
“The bullet was meant for a next person, and he was along with the person and he caught the bullet. The word is the shooter, whoever he is, said that whoever is with the person “Marky Puss” they will also get shot. And it was just bad luck that my nephew was there.”
“It’s hard, it affect us bad because there is nobody like him. We’re a loving family with one another, but nobody like him, Harrison is one out of a million.”
The family says, ironically, at the time Thomas was shot, he was wearing his walkman, listening to a song about crime and the many children orphaned by shootings. Thomas leaves behind a girlfriend five months pregnant with his child. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
Before Thomas passed away he was able to identify his attacker to the police. That name has yet to be released. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, in 1999 there were fifty-six homicides, while in 2000 police investigated forty-six. Police statistics for this year indicate that in only seven months, there have been forty-five homicides.
