Minor Committed Brazen Queen Street Shooting

Late this evening, a fifteen-year old minor was arraigned in court for Friday’s Queen Street shooting involving a police officer and three other persons.  The minor is facing a slew of charges, fourteen in all. Four are for attempted murder upon forty-four old Elroy Saldano of Pink’s Alley, thirty-four year old school warden Graciela Castillo and twenty-four year old office clerk Kean Smith and Corporal Alrick Arnold. Other charges are for firearm related offenses including keeping an unlicensed firearm in respect of a nine millimetre and for keeping unlicensed ammunition. The minor fled the scene, but police set chase and caught up with him. The firearm was found on him when he was detained. But it appears that he was brought into the city from the south to execute a hit on George Street figure, Brandon Tillett, aka “BT” but he missed.  It is believed the targeting of Tillett was in retaliation for the murder of Michael Wallace, which occurred on May twenty-ninth at mile eight on the George Price Highway.

Chester Williams

ACP Chester Williams, Regional Commander, Eastern Division South

“It goes back to what we have been saying that it is paramount that we begin to focus as a society to remove these kids from out of the hands of those persons who live every day to perpetrate criminal acts. And on south side we have been doing it. Yes the young man involved, he is known to be frequenting that area on south side Belize City and I must say that he has been dealt with by the police in the pass. We have removed him from the home of a known gang area on south side Belize City as well and he was sent to Dangriga where we know his mother is. And I guess for some reason or the other, the mother did not supervise him properly; he came back to Belize City and he commit this heinous act. My belief is that he was not acting in his own volition; I think that he was, like you rightly said, coerced by someone to go and commit that act and investigations are on their way. And the police are trying to see how much they can get to be able to determine whether or not or who may have coerced him to commit that act at the police station.”

According to Williams, following the shooting, an intervention requested by two rival gangs was held last Friday to deescalate tensions between the groups. The fifteen year old was remanded to the Belize Wagner’s Facility until August twenty-third, 2016.