ComPol Says Police Are Equipped to Transport Bodies for Autopsies

From time to time, the police are blamed for not having adequate transportation resources, particularly in the rural areas, to respond to an incident until long after the situation has played out. Currently, a man whose wife has died in Toledo is laying blame on the police for not being able to bury his loved one because he is repeatedly told that the police do not have a vehicle to transport the body to Ladyville for a post-mortem examination. When he spoke with the media on Wednesday, Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams apologized to the family and said he would look into the matter.

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“I have to apologize to Mr. Choco as you brought that up just a while ago. He did call me yesterday and made a complaint to me and I had promised him that I was going to make some calls and get back to him. But I had been extremely busy and I totally forgot until you mentioned it just a while ago. But I’m going to do that now as I get through from here to see how I can arrange to have his mother transported to Belize City to…”

 

Reporter

“His wife…”

 

Chester Williams

“The one who called me was a son, one of them had called me – to have his mother transported to Belize City for the postmortem. We don’t control postmortems. Many people believe that it’s the police department that controls when postmortems are going to be conducted. But that is done by the National Forensic Service, which is a totally different department. We have no control over that. Mr Cho is the head. I know that the National Forensic Service do have a lot of work. We have a number of sudden deaths, then we have murders, then we have persons who die in traffic accidents. And so their hands are extremely full. I can say that. Perhaps that’s the reason why the body is being held up.”

 

Reporter

“But Mr. Cho told me, “you can contact the police to get a comment about their – the police’s lack of mobiles to transport bodies from P.G. since last week.”

 

Chester Williams

“That should be no excuse, Jules. If that is the case, it should be no excuse. P.G. police do have mobile and they should be able to transport the body.”