Shyne Says Focus on Police Officers Selling Gun Licenses

Shyne Barrow

According to the Leader of the Opposition, public attention should be placed squarely on the Belize Police Department and the fact that officers who are said to be close to the Commissioner of Police are reportedly engaged in the sale of gun licenses.

Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition

“The focus should be that people close to the commissioner are selling license.  The focus should be that the person who gave the commissioner that fraudulent vetting paper for Ms. Marybeth has yet to be investigated, has yet to be arrested, has yet to be disciplined internally.  So the focus is corruption. If anyone should talk about crime and should talk about anti-corruption and talk about guns and how that is impacting our society, illegal guns, as well as legal guns, because the legal guns, the commissioner himself said [or] admitted that he gave a license to a gentleman who is a part of some notorious family, but the person, he feels, should not have to pay for the sins of his family.  Again, we don’t know if people are buying, bribing, purchasing gun license to give to criminals, and I am not talking about criminals for anyone that has ever committed a crime.  There are people on the People’s Constitution Commission that have committed crimes in their youth, but have reformed and rehabilitated.  So you can’t put it in this black and white box, we are talking about active criminals, we are talking about people leading a criminal lifestyle.  We are talking about people that pose a threat to our society.”