Police Say Don’t Let Safety Take a Holiday

Howell Gillett

For the last few days on this newscast, we have been featuring safety tips for Belizeans to avoid incidents and mishaps over the Christmas season. On Thursday, police commander for Belmopan, Senior Superintendent Howell Gillett, issued a comprehensive list of his own, especially as it relates to movements on and around the holidays. According to Gillett, the police’s motto for this year’s anti-crime operations is, “Don’t let safety take a holiday!”

Sr. Supt. Howell Gillett, O.C., Belmopan Police

“We don’t want people to be drinking and driving; and if you feel compelled to drink, please assign a designated driver where you are going, because people will be travelling with their families and we want to save lives especially during this time of festivities when people are drinking a lot of alcohol. One of the things that I want to alert the public [to], is that we want them to remember not to post their location, because people have a great tendency to say I am leaving home to go to this location, and the thieves are looking out for that, so we want people to desist from doing that. If they have to go out, we want them to inform a trusted neighbour. It has to be a trusted neighbor; because in one case, we saw where they told the neighbour and the neighbour was a burglary guy and he liked that, and he did his work but we were able to uncover it. Also, when you are leaving your home if you are going for an extended period of time, we want you to remember to leave a television on or stereo; maybe you can set it with a timer, so that it comes on [at a] specific time during your stay away from home. I urge the public: if you have glass windows or doors, to please draw the curtains – maybe keep on the light but have the curtains drawn. And that’s for obvious reasons – that people passing by, especially criminals, wouldn’t see what’s inside; the contents of the house.”

Police also advise to not boast about your newly bought valuables by leaving boxes in which these items are stored outside where criminals can see, or carrying around large sums of money. Police will be patrolling the major business areas to prevent robberies of businesses. Supt. Gillett also warns against overloading electrical circuits with appliances and especially Christmas trees.