A New Sherriff Comes to Eastern Division

Howell Gillett

Assistant Commissioner of Police Aaron Guzman is set to take over the reins as Regional Commander for Eastern Division in the coming days.  That’s because Deputy Commissioner Dezerie Magdaleno is retiring from the Belize Police Department after decades of service to law enforcement. The pending changes are part of a restructuring that will also see A.C.P. Howell Gillett being replaced as the top cop in Belize City. Gillett has been serving as Commander of Eastern Division for the past eight months and is now being transferred to head the Community Policing Unit.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Certainly, we are making some changes.  We have retirement in the pipeline, Deputy Commissioner Magdaleno is retiring and she goes on pre-retirement leave in September. And so, with that we’ll see A.C.P. Aaron Guzman taking over as Deputy Commissioner Commander Administration and Mr. Gillett, as you know, is a community policing enthusiast and with that he will take over from Aaron Guzman as Officer Commanding Community Policing, nationally, and Mr. Hilberto Romero who was once at C.I.B. Eastern Division and currently is the deputy National Crimes Investigation Branch will move over to Eastern Division as the new commander. We’ll see Mr. Jones coming in from Dangriga and he will take over as the Deputy H.N.C.I.B. and Mr. Moreira who is the commandant at the academy will go to Dangriga as the O.C. Dangriga. So those are some of the changes we are seeing right now. Again, we have to make adjustments when we do have retirements and put our people in areas where they are best fitted in order for us to be able to get maximum results from them.

Reporter

“But Mr. Gillett has been in that position, I believe, only for eight months.  Don’t you think this change shows some type of indecisiveness or a lack of clarity?”

Chester Williams

“It does not.  It shows that we know what we are doing.  He, as you would know, being in the media, you see him engage in a lot of community policing efforts and with the vacant post of O.C. Community Policing or commander, he is the best fitted person for that.”