9 Days in SOE, 53 Persons Detained

It has been nine days since the state of emergency was declared in southside Belize City, Roaring Creek, and parts of Camalote. Since then, there has been a relative sense of peace across the Old Capital, except for one murder on Good Friday. Today, we caught up with Police Commissioner Chester Williams, to get an update on the department’s work under the SOE and to get his response to one complaint about police abuse.

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“So far I can say that it is going well and as much as the regulations that accompany the declaration do give the police a number of powers, we have not been using those powers. So if you move around the areas that are under a state of emergency you can see that the law abiding citizens still move around freely as the SOE was not intended to disrupt the movement of law abiding people but rather to get a better grip on those gang members who continue to demonstrate that propensity to perpetuate criminal acts. So far I can say we have a total of twenty-three persons detained from Roaring Creek and Camalote and thirty from BElize City.So, we have fifty-three persons currently in prison.”

 

Paul Lopez

“There are people saying the police are abusing their authority under the SOE, how do you respond?

 

Chester Williams 

“I would respond to that by simply saying, if you as a citizen have seen that, I personally have not seen any. I believe that the police, as much as there is an SOE, the police have not acted in such a way to even enforce some of the provision. For example, under the SOE you would see that there loitering and these sort of things. You still see people the loiter but for they most part they are law abiding people so we try our best not to disrupt that. Some people, no matter what happen they are going to have a negative aversion and say things that are not so, but even if you look at social media, everything that happens out there it is always on social media. Do you see anything out there to the effect that police are abusing their powers?”

 

Paul Lopez

“We published one story of police pointing a gun at and individual in a bathroom and he was not fully clothed”

 

Chester Williams

“Was that the day the police were executing the SOE? Come one Mr. Lopez unu have to learn to stop give airtime to stupidity. This is the reason why criminals behave the way they are, because unu give them air time.”