B.D.F. clears Borland but doubts persist
A week after the confrontation between rock throwing protesters and armed security forces at Tower Hill Bridge, the Belize Defence Force has cleared Captain John Borland of any wrongdoing. The investigation, conducted last week by a panel of B.D.F. officers, was presented last week to the Ministry of National Security. While the text has not been made public, CEO in the Ministry, Alan Usher, today told News 5 that after reviewing the available evidence, it is clear that Captain Borland fired over the heads of protesters into the line of trees beyond the crowd. Borland fired a total of nine rounds, said Usher, and those were the only bullets not accounted for by the sixteen man B.D.F. squad. The investigation also found that none of the bullet holes which perforated the bus, nor any of the injuries suffered by two protesters, were caused by a 5.56 millimetre bullet, the type of ammunition used by the B.D.F.’s M-16 rifles. But while the B.D.F. may be satisfied with its self-examination, not everyone is buying the rapid results. News 5’s Stewart Krohn has been looking at the videotapes, analysing the audio and talking to independent witnesses. While not refuting the conclusion of where Captain Borland may have been firing, he did find that not all the B.D.F. bullets necessarily came from Borland’s gun.
Stewart Krohn, Reporting
The videotape, played in real time, clearly shows nine shots, all of which appear to be fired by Captain John Borland from a standing position at the railing of the Tower Hill Bridge.
But what at first glance seems clear becomes much more troubling when slowed down for a frame by frame analysis. The first shot catches cameraman Brent Toombs by surprise. His tape is rolling but the camera is pointed away from the action, so there is no way we can tell who fired that first shot. But by the second shot, less than two seconds later, the camera is in position. It clearly shows Borland taking aim and firing. Note the highly visible puff of smoke as he fires and the fact that because light travels faster than sound, we see the smoke just before we hear the sound of the shot. But now watch shot number three, which comes less than three seconds later. We hear a shot but where is the smoke? Look again. We hear the shot; we even see the cameraman turn instinctively to the left, as if looking for the source of the noise, but there is clearly no smoke coming from Captain Borland’s M-16.
Now we go to shot number four, less than one second later. From the pattern of smoke followed by sound there is no doubt of its origins. But not so for shot number five over two seconds later. Once again, we hear the sound but see no smoke from the gun. The same is true for shot number six, only our view is slightly obstructed. A shot is heard but no smoke emerges from the barrel of Borland’s rifle. Looking at seven, eight and nine, they are unmistakable. We clearly see the smoke and hear the shots.
To sum up, of the nine shots fired in this thirty-four second span, five were conclusively fired by Captain John Borland; one goes off while the camera is down and conceivably could have been fired by Borland. Three of the shots, however, numbers three, five and six strongly appear not to have come from the captain’s weapon.
Stewwart Krohn
“The tale of the tape may seem conclusive: somebody other than Captain Borland fired at least three of the nine shots. But we went one step further and took the tape to a sound studio to see if anything more could be determined without the distraction of the pictures.”
Anthony Robateau of Ludwig Studios in Belize City never saw the video tape, but he did spend four hours listening to the sound of gunshots. Each of the nine shots was run through a noise reduction programme to eliminate any voices or other extraneous sound. Robateau is a recording engineer and not a ballistics expert, so he cannot render a professional opinion on who may or may not have fired a weapon, but what he did discover is interesting.
Each shot, he explained, has a unique signature with regard to loudness and range of frequencies. The variables involved are the type of weapon, the distance of the weapon from the microphone and the direction in which the mike is pointing. For four of the shots, numbers two through five, the cameraman is in the same position, with his camera and microphone pointed in the same direction, approximately the same distance from Captain Borland. If your ear cannot detect any difference between the four shots, the graphic computer display can.
Looking at the readouts for each of the four shots they show that shots two and four, those clearly fired by Borland, have almost identical audio signatures; while shots three and five, those clearly not fired by Borland, also have nearly identical signatures. Those signatures, however, are radically different from shots two and four. The logical conclusion? Somebody besides Captain Borland was firing from a different position; how that soldier may have accounted for his spent bullets is a question only he and Captain Borland can answer. Stewart Krohn for News 5.
In addition to the video and audio evidence, News 5 intern Isani Cayetano, who was on the scene at Tower Hill, has already stated that he saw B.D.F. soldier Robert Jones fire his M-16. Cayetano was present in B.D.F. Commandant, Cedric Borland’s office last week while the General was being interviewed by News 5’s Ann-Marie Williams. Although Borland was aware of Cayetano’s allegations, he declined to ask him any questions regarding the incident. While Captain John Borland has been cleared of wrongdoing by the B.D.F. and taken off suspension, he still remains under warning pending the conclusions of an official commission of inquiry ordered by the Prime Minister and chaired by Supreme Court Justice Christopher Blackman.
