Patrick Faber Says Female Minor “Very Troubled Young Person”

Patrick Faber

While C.E.O. George Lovell condemns the policemen’s behavior, Acting Prime Minister Patrick Faber told the media today that he does not have enough information to condemn the action of the officers. Faber did say, however, that police officers need to be properly trained to deal with such situations.

Patrick Faber, Acting Prime Minister of Belize 

“I have not seen the video myself actually. I got glimpses of it in the news last night. From what I am told, we need to be careful on how we jump on these situations. The young lady, very regrettably, is a very troubled young person. I am told, her father speak about how difficult she was to control in the home. Of course people at the youth hostel have a very difficult time in terms of controlling her behavior there as well. It is not pointing fingers at anybody. These situations exist and they are real. We are not always a very, very versed in terms of handling these situation. The police have a job to do in fact whenever the people at the hostel cannot contain situations or cannot control the behavior there. Of course they will call on the police. I appeal to those on the social media that, this might be a futile appeal, but to not jump to conclusion and not to make a bad situation worse, by tearing down the police and pointing fingers and calling names. The police have enough situations where there are genuine cases of abuse I think. But I am not certain that this is one of them given the merits, or demerits of the case that I have word.”

Hipolito Novelo

“So this is a female minor. The video shows two adult male police officers. One chokeholds her and the other one punches her a couple of times in her face. That, everyone would say, is abuse and excessive force by these police officers. Won’t you condemn that?”

Patrick Faber

“I don’t know all of those details and I don’t feel comfortable enough to condemn the police in this regard and again, the police have a job to do. They have to protect not only that young lady and others who were around. I don’t know the circumstances of what situation the young lady was in when the police accosted her. I simply I am not go there. I don’t have enough information to go where you want me to go.”