Belizean Artist Shot in Victoria Street Attack

John King

A shooting incident in Belize City around nine-thirty p.m. on Wednesday has left an aspiring musical artist recovering in the hospital.  It happened on Victoria Street, just a stone’s throw away from the Pickstock Hutment.  A vehicle emerged on the scene where several young men were standing.  Before they knew it, they were running for their lives in a hail of bullets.  Fortunately, no one was gravely injured during the ambush.  News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

Tonight, a local musician remains hospitalized at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital following an armed attack on a group of men just before curfew on Wednesday night.  Reports are that twenty-seven-year-old John King was socializing at the Fitzgibbon residence on Victoria Street when he came under gunfire, along with several others.  The young men spoke with News Five off-record and told us that they were in front of the building near the sidewalk when they observed an individual in the middle of the street pointing a shiny object in their direction.  He began walking towards them, letting loose a barrage of bullets indiscriminately.  King ran through an adjacent alley but was injured while doing so.  His friends ran inside the house in an attempt to escape but the gunman pursued them, firing as they scrambled for cover.  A round tore through this wooden cupboard before ricocheting off a nearby wall.  In the ensuing chaos another young man was grazed on the left calf and while attempting to scale a fence at the rear of the property, injured his left foot on a sheet of zinc.  The incident, according to them, is the result of an ongoing feud between persons on Victoria Street and others from Majestic Alley.  King’s sibling told News Five this afternoon that he has since undergone surgery and will remain hospitalized for at least five days before being discharged.  It’s a longstanding rivalry that has claimed several lives over the years.