Female Minor and 21- Year- Old Male Targeted By Gunman in Lords Bank Village

A female teen and her twenty-one-year-old cousin are lucky to be alive tonight. That is after a gunman targeted them in Lords Bank Village. The shooting incident occurred last night around seven p.m. while the two were walking along Edwin Parks Street. It is believed that the shooting is in relation to another murder that happened a week ago in the very same community. News Five’s Paul Lopez visited Lords Bank Village this morning. Here’s his report.

Paul Lopez, Reporting

Tensions are escalating in Lords Bank Village between rival groups. A sixteen-year-old minor and her twenty-one-year-old cousin, Harrison Parks, were walking on Edwin Parks Street in the village at around seven p.m. on Tuesday night when they came under heavy gunfire. Residents in the area reported hearing up to eleven gunshots coming from inside a gray car that drove past the two victims. The assailant shot the minor in the hip, while Parks received injuries to the abdomen. Residents in the community believe that last night’s shooting incident was retaliatory. The community members we spoke to suspect that the shooter acted in response to the murder of twenty-eight-year-old Alburn Rivero on Thursday of last week on Old Well Road in Lords Bank Village. The victim of last night’s shooting, Harrison Parks, is a student at the University of Belize. Only moments before he was shot, he had exited a bus he caught from Belize City after concluding his final class for the day. It is believed that Banks was the gunman’s primary target.

This morning, Edwin Parks Street was teeming with police officers on the hunt for a possible suspect in last night’s shooting. Residents reported to police sightings of strange vehicles in the area, particularly on the street where Parks resided. But the Lords Bank community is not sitting idly by. One concerned resident cut down this plum tree that is said to be a hangout spot for young men at night. It is one step that community members have taken to alleviate the frequent occurrence of criminal activity. As for the condition of the two victims of last night’s shooting, their parents informed us that they are both recovering from the traumatic incident.

Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.