Over 100 Children Receive Gifts from the Police Department

This evening, over a hundred children from Belize City received Christmas gifts from members of the Belize Police Department. The kind gesture came courtesy of the British High Commission’s office and the Embassy of Taiwan and was organized through the Community Policing Unit. The Prime Minister was present for the occasion at the Belize City Civic Centre and he and the police department’s National Commander of Community Policing, A.C.P Howell Gillett, spoke on the occasion.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Today I was invited to come here for a little while just to show my support for the work that they’re doing and for the children, you know. Christmas is about the children, and so it has been quite heart-warming and pleasing to be here. I firmly believe that the future of policing in Belize has to be community-based. It has to be that the police become a part of the community.”

Howell Gillett

A.C.P Howell Gillett, ACP Howell Gillett, Commander, National Community Policing

“From since 1886, we’ve been arresting people and we haven’t netted the results that we’ve wanted. So we’ve learned some years ago that we have to do more to help young people not to reach into that stage of being arrested. And today’s activity is not geared primarily to that, but to help and show young people that policing is not only about making arrests. Today is a day to celebrate these just over a hundred young persons from different eras within Belize City. And I want to tell the audience that these young people were chosen by our community policing officers across the precincts. They’re the ones who said these are the kids who might not have gotten a Christmas gift this Christmas. So we needed to do something about it.”