The Ladyville jurisdiction of the Belize Police Department recorded its third murder since the start of the year. On Wednesday night, a seventeen-year-old student was gunned down on the Lord’s Bank Road, just a stone’s throw from where he lived in the village. Brandon Randy Bradley was riding home when he was shot to the […]
Just minutes before the murder of Brandon Bradley, there was an armed robbery at the 24/7 Gas Station located at the junction of the Phillip Goldson Highway and the Lord’s Bank Road in Ladyville. Surveillance video provided to the media by the proprietor of the establishment shows that around nine-thirty-nine p.m., a female gas attendant […]
Police in Belize City are still busy fighting crime, even though the gang element has for now been removed as a major source of worry. Sometime this afternoon, the downtown store of GO Wireless was targeted by two robbers on a motorcycle. Police report that the men got away with an undisclosed sum of cash. […]
The Corozal Commercial Free Zone has had its share of recent troubles with imports falling drastically and sales plummeting as well. Now comes word that with a new man at the helm, administrative staff protested by not showing up to work today because of unenumerated ‘issues’ with their boss. News Five understands that all activity […]
On the eve of the extended holiday weekend, opposing gangs met in the city to commit to a crime free weekend. The meeting was held at the Raccoon Police Station and attended by representatives of all gangs and top cop Chester Williams of the Eastern Division South as well as mediator Dianne Finnegan and Motivational […]
On Wednesday, Orange Walk businessman Barton Middleton flatly told the senators in the Immigration inquiry that he had nothing more to say in regard to questions of his alleged involvement in under-handed immigration deals with the eight missing visa foils taken from the Western Border Station in 2012. Middleton appeared before the Senate prior to […]
According to the latest statistics released by the Statistical Institute of Belize, though food prices are down slightly, Belizeans are feeling the pain of a higher cost of living due to hefty increases in prices in the transport category. The prices of goods and services regularly purchased by Belizean households were two point three percent […]
Omar Phillips worked as a Data Entry Clerk for the Immigration Department from 2009 to 2013, when the Won Hong Kim scandal broke, and his role became known. He and two other officers, Erwin Robinson and Sharon Neal, were suspended from their jobs. They were also taken before the Public Service Commission for a hearing. […]
According to Phillips, Immigration officers, particularly at lower levels, receive only the most basic training in the various tasks to which they are assigned on a daily basis. For data entry and capture, that is as simple as looking at the forms cursorily without attention to specific detail, and passing them on. Senator Mark Lizarraga […]
As we reported on Wednesday, retired Immigration Officer Therese Chavarria confirmed that in at least two or three cases, with permission from senior officials, she was able to fool the passport system into accepting a picture of someone who did not appear to take the photograph in person. Her method was basic: she simply printed […]
The Senate Special Select Committee has been soliciting most attendees of the public hearings for their ideas on how the Immigration Department can be improved. While it has become clear that a culture of corruption and hustling pervaded the Department, the will to remove it has been absent. As a public officer for more than […]
A Canadian woman and her boyfriend are reported missing in the north. On Wednesday midday American national Joseph Milholen reported that earlier that day he went to pick up his friend fifty-two-year-old Francesca Matus from Serenity Sands on the Consejo Road in Corozal. Milholen reported that he was to take Matus to the P.G.I.A., but […]
There is a rape conviction to report tonight. In January 2015, a Dangriga man met a woman walking on the road side heading into the town to pick up a package. He offered her a ride to the Benguche area, but things went awfully wrong. The woman said she thought the vehicle hit something so […]
Police officers from El Salvador were in Belize to take part in the GREAT program. They joined up with local police officers for a two-week training program that concluded today at the Radisson Hotel in the City. GREAT has had considerable success in gang and violence prevention. It has been implemented in Belize for years. […]
Rural Eastern Division of the Police Department is making changes to their headquarters in Ladyville, Belize District to allow for greater space for officers to do their work. Both Government and the private sector are contributing to building an attachment to the building currently hosting the commander’s office as well as a new detention center […]
On Wednesday, you heard South Side Commander ACP Chester Williams talk about the progress community policing has made on the south side. Last weekend his division held a family day in the Conch Shell Bay area and he says that more activities like that are on the horizon. One of the areas he wants to […]
Earlier this week, we asked C.E.O. George Lovell of the Ministry of Home Affairs about the transfers of some of top cops in Belize District. One in particular is the transfer of Chester Williams. So will the move affect the peace established over the last few days? In the interview, Lovell appears to take a […]
Government has secured financing from the Caribbean Development Bank to expand the Youth and Community Transformation Project to at risk communities in Dangriga, San Ignacio and Santa Elena. These communities are challenged by increasing crime and violence, anti-social behavior and limited access to social services. The new project called Youth RISE is funded through a […]
Today, the Embassy of Mexico and the Mexican trade and investment agency, ProMexico, organized a Commercial Mission to Belize where seven companies from Cancun and Merida brought products and services to meet with local entrepreneurs. Officials from the Mexican trade team were joined by representatives from BELTRAIDE as well as the Belize Chamber of Commerce. […]
Art is being used as a means to bring communities together. In the south side of Belize City, the Department of Youth Services has turned bare walls into colorful pieces to promote peace in the community. Three generations of men and women came together to create murals that are not only pleasing to the eye, […]
For the first few years of a child’s life they are totally dependent on their parents and caretakers for all their basic needs. There have been successful strategies implemented in Belize to improve immunization coverage, exclusive breastfeeding and other child centered programs to ensure the best health for young children. But young babies, need more […]
