Is the Special Patrol Unit Falling Short of the Commissioner’s Expectations?

Chester Williams

The Commissioner of Police and his Eastern Division Commanders held a meeting with members of the Special Patrol Unit today in Belize City. According to ComPol Williams, the unit that has played such a huge role in subduing violence in the Old Capital for the past weeks has been slacking off. The meeting with the unit was to pledge their support for its commander, Assistant Superintendent, Aaron Gamboa. Here is what he told us.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Certainty I will be reading the Riot Act to the SPU. I need to see more coming out of them. That is for sure. We pay very keen attention to the murder rate. These three murders in San Pedro put a hurt on us, but like I said we have to do our best to solve it. I will commend the team in Eastern Division under the command of Mr. Romero, Mr. Noble and Mr. Reyes. They have been doing an excellent job in ensuring that our operational objectives are met. Whenever there is a shortfall in what I expect of the team I would normally bring them in and try to make sure we get back on track. I do not anticipate and foresee that we are going to lose Belize City despite those incidents. I do believe we are working together, the police and other stakeholders including the LIU, to ensure we achieve the objectives and concept of LIU. We continue to do our intervention, the work projects, educational projects, so the entire process of LIU is working. And we do have the good policing effort on the streets but there are times when those efforts fall short of our expectation. We believe that over the past few days we have seen where the SPU have fallen short of that expectation. So we are going to meet with them today to ensure that they get back on track where we want them to be.”