3 Senior Police Officers are Placed on Administrative Leave
Three senior police officers have been placed on administrative leave following the series of riotous activities that happened at the Port of Belize’s compound on Wednesday. Those officers, in this first instance, have been placed on five days administrative leave. They are Eastern Division Commander, ACP Alden Dawson; Region One Commander Senior Superintendent Daniel Dawson and Commander of the GSU, Assistant Superintendent Edlin Lorenzo. In the interim, Dawson has been replaced by Assistant Commissioner of Police Doctor Richard Rosado; Arzu has been replaced by Superintendent Reymundo Reyes; and Lorenzo has been replaced by Roy Joseph. There is an ongoing investigation at this time and these decisions come out of the preliminary investigations led by Deputy Commissioner Dezerie Philips-Magdaleno and the Professional Standards Branch. Today, C.E.O. George Lovell in the Ministry of National Security briefed the media on these changes.
George Lovell
(Ret’d) Col. George Lovell, C.E.O., Ministry of National Security
“Our initial investigation has caused us to put three senior officers on administrative leave. Under the law, when the C.E.O. or the head of the department, in this case the commissioner, would place any of his officers on administrative leave we are given five days in which to wrap up that initial investigation because the administrative leave is to allow us to be able to investigate the matter and to have that initial investigation wrapped up within five days. The purpose of us doing that investigation is so that we can determine precisely what may have occurred and for us to decide if there are any other actions that we would need to take going forward. Those investigations have caused us to have ACP Alden Dawson, along with Senior Superintendent of Police Daniel Arzu and Assistant Superintendent of Police Edlin Lorenzo to be placed on administrative leave. While those officers are on administrative leave, we will have some replacement in their post, so that that the business that we are tasked to do will continue and continue seamlessly. ACP Alden Dawson will be replaced by ACP Richard Rosado; Senior Superintendent Daniel Arzu will be replaced by his deputy Superintendent Reymundo Reyes and ASP Edlin Lorenzo, we will have a senior person be placed into his post until we can get to the bottom of this and that is Senior Superintendent Roy Joseph. Those movements take immediate effect.”
