Belmopan constable charged with prisoner death

After two days of intense investigation of the entire Belmopan police formation, a police officer has been charged with murder. Constable Jesus Canton appeared in court today and was charged with the death of Daniel Tillett, a detainee who died while in police custody on Independence Day. The officer in charge of the station Inspector Aaron Guzman has been interdicted from duty. Tillett was taken into custody on the afternoon of September twenty-first, while he was celebrating at the Independence Park in Belmopan. He was dead just hours later. Belmopan police claimed he was drunk and suffocated in his own vomit. The medical examination told a very different story indicating Tillett had water in his lungs, a ruptured liver and a fractured skull. Police immediately detained three police officers and questioned everyone else who was on duty. Tillett’s family went to the Human Rights Commission after they were allegedly told by other prisoners that Tillett had been beaten by police. He was buried today at Our Lady of Guadelupe Cathedral in Belmopan. Police have declined to comment on whether two other constables are still being detained, saying only “the investigation is continuing”. The scandal follows on the heels of another death at the station three weeks ago when a man accused of child molestation and incest was reported to have hanged himself inside his cell.