On the Tenth of September, the story should be all about the Citizens' Parade, but, instead, tonight, it's about a grenade that was found yesterday in the territory of the Ghost Town Crips on Mayflower Street. It was in the overgrowth under a mango tree just a short distance from the street side. It's the second live grenade found in that gang's territory in four days - a very disturbing discovery for police, and for the society generally, because it suggests that public terror is at hand.
The first person police called was General David Jones, who was just leaving the official ceremonies for the Tenth September at the Memorial Park. He went directly to the scene and took possession of the grenade. We met him an hour later at Price Barracks where he told us what makes this grenade different and very frightening:...
Jules Vasquez reporting
This is the grenade that the police found on Saturday in an abandoned lot - five meters from the side of road. It's an old ugly thing, blotched with rust, but still very deadly:
BRIG. GEN. David Jones, Commander BDF/Explosives Expert
"It is frightening because this grenade was actually armed. There are two pins that are supposed to be on this grenade; one has already been remove, the other one is on, so it's just a matter of pulling the other one and that grenade would have been ready to fire. It has the same lethal thing like the British defensive grenade. It's also a defensive grenade, so the casualty radius is up to about 200 meters. Heavy casualties is within 50 meters and lethal within 15 meters would have kill anybody within that radius."
And that radius was a densely populated area where children are known to play:
BRIG. GEN. David Jones, Commander BDF/Explosives Expert
"It's an area where it's obvious that children would have been playing there. A child could have gone and picked up this grenade and played with it and not sure what it was and could have detonated because the first clip has already been removed. If a child had picked that up it would have been a frightening situation where he could have been ki8lled."
And it was not exactly artfully concealed:
BRIG. GEN. David Jones, Commander BDF/Explosives Expert
"It was in a plastic bag wrapped up and there were about 3 more plastic bags inside the actual grenade itself. After inspection I realize it was an American type grenade and after confirmation realized it was an M26A1 fragmentation grenade."
So, this is an American type grenade, not the British type, meaning that underworld groups are now sourcing their grenades from different areas:
BRIG. GEN. David Jones, Commander BDF/Explosives Expert
"The concern now is not only the British grenades are on the streets, now we have American type grenades on the street. The question is where are these coming in from and the problem would be to try and find out where they are to stop people from using these because these are very lethal grenades."
Even more alarming is the appearance that this was about to be used:
BRIG. GEN. David Jones, Commander BDF/Explosives Expert
"It is very possible that this would have been use shortly because it was park in an area , pins were already removed, so it was just a matter to pull the other pin and throw it and knowing that the celebrations are on its pretty frighten to see that these grenades are actually on the streets. We have to remain vigilant for the rest of the celebration fever because this is an indication that these guys probably will use grenades during this time because they are being found on the streets of Belize City."
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