Is Police Department Concerned About Recent Murder Trends?

Chester Williams

There have been two incidents of late where multiple persons have been shot dead during armed assaults in Sand Hill Village and Belize City.  While these types of violent occurrences are unusual, we asked the Commissioner of Police whether the department is observing a new trend of murders that involve more than one victims.  Here’s his response.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“I see where some people have some negative comments to say about the police in respect to the double murder.  But how could the police have averted that matter from occurring?  I don’t see how. When we look at the whole scheme of things, Belize City, for the most part, has been relatively quiet.  The multi-sectoral approach that we have applied or implemented in Belize City is working.  We can’t expect that there isn’t going to be any killing.  We can’t expect that it is going to stop all murders from occurring.  We’ll be naïve to think that, but we do expect it is going to reduce or contain the amount of murders that we have been having and it is serving it’s purpose.  Yes, there’s a need for us to do a little bit more to tweak it and perhaps include more people to it to make it better and that is something Mr. Dawson and Mr. Rosado are looking at.  As a police department, we can’t be blamed for things that we don’t do. We are out there, we are doing our bets to contain the crime problem.  So when crime does occur, you can’t blame the police.  You have to push the blame squarely where they belong, on the shoulders of those persons who are perpetrating these crimes and those who are tolerating them to do these crimes.”