7 News Belize

Great 08: Urban Terror Era
posted (December 31, 2008)

But whatever was prompting it, everything changed when a grenade was thrown into Mayflower Street on May 16th. Here's what happened.

[Air Date: May 19th]

Sharett Smith, Mother of Deceased
"Well when I saw him, I said my son won't make it. In the condition he was in, he wouldn't have made it."

Sixteen year old Darren Trapp suffered severe head concussion, facial injuries and massive wounds to his feet. Sharett Jones says she did not even recognize her own son at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.

Sharett Jones,
"They already had bandage over his jaw, they had a sheet across him, the thing on his hand, and they had like a thing in his mouth to pump it – to make him breathe. When I got in there I told them that wasn't my son because it didn't look like my son; the way how his face looked. He lost an eye and he lost a leg and the doctor said that three bullets were in his head and his skull, like it was coming through his eye – so they said he would definitely lose his eye. But one of his eyes was open and another shot when I saw him."

Trapp had just returned from spending the day at the Agriculture and Trade Show with friends and was socializing at his usual spot on Mayflower Street when someone threw what they believe to be first a stone into the crowd.

Sharett Jones,
"I get to understand that when the thing was thrown, they asked who was stoning them and it looks like my son saw the thing, I guess the thing was letting go smoke or whatsoever, and he kicked it but when he kicked it, the same time he kicked it – the same time the thing exploded. So he is the one who got it the most. He always goes through, don't matter how much I talk to him. I tell him through is not for him to hang out, he is too young, but no matter how you talk to him – he still goes. You can come out of the house and leave him home and by the time you come back home, he would just disappear and go about his business."

Eleven other persons who range in age from fifteen to twenty nine years old received injuries to their legs, face, neck, hands, shoulders and abdomen. Neria Wolcock was the only woman who was injured with cuts to her jaw and breast. Wolcock told 7NEWS that she was walking away from the group but looked back when she heard someone curse and then she blacked out.

Jacqueline Godwin,
Norman I know when we spoke to you Sunday night you were very concerned about your both your sons' conditions, Teddy and Ervin, how are both doing today?

Norman Reyes, Father Victims
"Ervin is doing fine so far. He has his stitch on where the bomb busted up in him but they didn't get it that worst because they were behind. But I understand that a person came by the lane on a bicycle and throw the bomb. But the guys didn't know it was a bomb, they thought it was a stone so they kicked it. When they kicked, it exploded and at the same time my son was just coming home."

Jacqueline Godwin,
This is Teddy?

Norman Reyes,
"Yes he had just jumped on his bike to come home and at the same time, it blew him off his bike and knocked him in his chest and his foot and everything. The worst part of it is his chest where it bore into his chest close to his heart. So the doctor says he has a 50-50 to live but they will do their best to try and make him live. So the doctor showed me the x-ray and showed me that half of it is dark and half of it is clear. He said the half of it which is dark, that is the part that which could affect him, but they will do their best."

Some eight hours after the explosion crime investigators returned to the bloody scene.

Jane Smith, Resident - Mayflower Street
"I do not know who threw it but all I know is that I sit here and I saw a fire up and just after that I heard the blast down and I just saw everyone running this side full of blood. So I run in and it looked like a lot of them had gotten shot, everybody was creeping come this side, everybody was just bust up. So as far as we know, it is not something that we see who did it or who didn't do it."

The south side explosion heard for blocks all the way even on the north side. But for those who lived nearby like long time Mayflower Street resident Jane Smith it is one experience she will not forget. Smith believes the victims and neighbours like herself did not know it was a grenade that exploded.

Jane Smith,
"I did not know. I didn't know because all the guys were running and some of them were hollering that they got shot, they got shot. But looking at the crowd coming down, who were creeping out, everybody was bust up so you know it wasn't a gun."

Norman Reyes,
"Well I was at home when I heard the thing explode like a dynamite. So my girl told me to come out and see what happened at the front. So when I jumped out of my bed, I put on my clothes and I went out there, they say my son blow up, they said they threw grenade and it took three seconds before it blew up, the same time the young men attempted to leave."

Major David Jones, BDF Bomb Squad
"The explosions inside does produce a shockwave and that shockwave was enough to just shake the houses a bit, cause it did shake one or two of the houses, it gave it a little rock and it goes back. But the damage from the grenade is actually from the pellets inside. Those pellets normally travel up to three hundred meters. Within a 100 meters, that type of grenade, the pellet, you will still get injured but not serious injury. Usually if you're within 5 to 10 meter radius, you could be lethally injured."

Jacqueline Godwin,
This is scary because a lot of people could have died.

Jane Smith,
"Lot of people, lotta people could have died because you have a guy who had just left to get a bike and ride come so from one of the same boys. Serious, but that is as far as we know; sit right here and watch that. You see it in movies but you don't see it out like that."

The blast also injured Jane Smiths' nephew fifteen year old Sheriff Smith who remains in the KHMH.

Jane Smith,
"When I gone in the hospital they already had him on the bed and he had a lot of holes here, his two foot were full of holes and he just laid down right there. Then the next guy beside him, the next little boy, they said like he isn't hearing out of his ears, he is not hearing, so he is tossing and tossing and everybody everybody – a bed for each."

As Sharett Jones tries to cope with the tragic loss of her eldest son she knows Darren would still be alive if he had stayed inside the vehicle of a family friend that brought him from Belmopan but stopped at the friends' residence in Belize City.

Sharett Jones,
"She said when she was reaching home, it was then she said somebody was missing out of the vehicle but it looked like she didn't hear my son's voice. When she asked where Darren was, they said Darren wasn't in the vehicle. The young lady came to me and told me that she went there last night and told Darren not to go anywhere because she said her boyfriend went to buy chicken or something like to must be eat and she said she was going to go bathe and it looks like when she went into the bathroom, he came out and he look like he went. He went across to my cousin and he hollered for my cousin Ebony and Ebony wasn't home. It looked like he had clothes there or slippers there and it looked like he changed and he went about his business. The young said that when she sent her boyfriend to look for him through Mayflower, by the time the boy reached – they told him that Darren was with the crowd in the explosion that happened."

Now the families who are living in the aftermath are still reeling form this unprecedented act of violence:

Sharett Jones,
"I just to see justice done about it because too much things are happening in Belize. Innocent people are getting killed for no reason."

Alfonso Noble,
Are you surprised that they threw a grenade into your neighbourhood?

Norman Reyes,
"Well the way I see it right, everybody got grenade, machine gun, and everything because all of us aren't safe none at all now."

A Survivor's Story

The loss in those communities was immediate, direct and as real as possible.  I got the first hand account.
 

[Airdate: June 25th 2008]

Teddy Reyes, Survived Grenade Explosion
"After it explode I think like somebody come shoot cause I feel like I get shot in my jaw and as, after that I just feel like I come down from out of the air and broke my finger and after that I just hear people the cry."

Doctors had pronounced him dead two times but twenty year old Teddy Reyes was not ready to give up. He was the most critically injured and was given only a fifty percent chance to survive. Reyes had suffered massive injuries that left at least seventeen holes in his body.

Teddy Reyes,
"Like my mom and them say the doctor had already given me up and tell them how I had died but after that they saw I start to gain pulse and open my eye and they started to rush me."

Patricia Cruz, Mother
"Well at first I could not believe because I said that my son is strong and he is going to make it so I didn't believe. But my daughter was with me and she started crying and thing and after that we went back inside and the doctor said that he came back to again and thing. But it was a horrible experience for me and right now I am still going through a hard time."

The explosion not only launched Reyes into the air but it also tore apart his right leg, left him partially deaf in the right ear and caused a serious wound to the chest and abdomen. He survived, but it's his quality of life that's now in question. It is not certain if he will be able to walk again much less live a normal life.

Jacqueline Godwin,
Your ears were damaged?

Teddy Reyes,
"I was bleeding through my ears, my eye, and my nose. My right foot, piece of bone went missing, I have a big hole in my foot and I have to put this steel because the night when I was there, only the skin was holding it up."

Patricia Cruz,
"It was a horrible sight, blood was everywhere, everywhere. I was so frightened that I forgot I was in my night gown. I went right so in my night gown to the hospital."

Reyes is now back home after spending just over a month in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital but as explained by Patricia Cruz her son's recovery will take a very long time.

Patricia Cruz,
"He has pins in his chest, his belly, his foot, his jaw. Doctors say it will take a long time for him to recover but I know he will recover but maybe he won't be the same again. I just continue to pray and ask God to give me strength and that he will make it through it, that he will be able to walk again."

The explosion killed sixteen year old Darren Trapp and injured eleven others. None of the survivors have publicly spoken about what happened on that may eighteenth night; that is until today when Reyes shared with us what had happened.

Teddy Reyes,
"The young boy had just come from Agriculture Show and he was talking about what happened up there. We were there in a circle talking and just, ‘boom,' the explosion happened."

Jacqueline Godwin,
What you thought it was?

Teddy Reyes,
"We thought it was a rock drop and Dwayne went by the rock and just kick the rock and then everything just explode.

I can't move around until maybe like next year when they have done the bone draft."

Jacqueline Godwin,
So this is a long road to recovery?

Teddy Reyes,
"Yes ma'am. From the doctor say he can't believe I survived because they have already given me up."

Twice a day, seven days a week Reyes goes to KHMH to dress his wounds but the family continues to struggle financially. They are appealing for public assistance.

Teddy Reyes,
"I have to go through two more operations, one for my foot and one for my upper body. I have to get a bone graft for my foot in the next two months."

Reyes says he knows a lot of challenges lie ahead but he is grateful to be alive to spend time with his three year old son and family.

Teddy Reyes,
"My family supports me. People come around and give me advice. I have a son to live for."

Meanwhile Patricia Cruz says she does not seek revenge but continues to pray for those who are responsible.

Patricia Cruz,
"I don't have no grievance against nobody or nothing. I just pray for them and thing because if I have grievance against anybody, my son will never survive or nothing like that so I don't hold grievance against nobody. I just pray for them and their parents too."

Reporting for 7NEWS, Jacqueline Godwin.

More Grenades in Belize City

[Air Date: June 23rd 2008]

And just as everyone was hoping that it was a one time thing, that somehow the grenade attack was an aberration, some more deadly explosives were found on the city's Southside a month later, confirming that the urban terror era was here to stay:
 

When the Mayflower Street grenade attack occurred on May 21st, it was as if something changed irreversibly in Belize: gun and gang violence changed to a kind of urban terrorism. Since then city residents have all been living in a sort of collective fear, waiting for the next grenade to drop. Well tonight the recently formed Gang and Violence Prevention Unit may have averted a dangerous and similar attack as they today searched a home and came up with a deadly type of plastic explosive. We found out more an hour ago.

This is half a pound of PE 4, a plastic explosive - the British equivalent of C4, widely known as one of the world's deadliest explosives. And these electrical leads in the background and electrical and non electrical detonators are all you need to detonate it. These were found along with a smoke grenade and a sawed off pump action 12 gauge shotgun at a home at the corner of Berkeley and Plues Streets.

The Gang and Violence Prevention Unit made the find. Inspector Oscar Tzib heads the unit.

Inspector Oscar Tzib, Head – Gang & Violence Prevention Unit
"We had some elements of, you could say destruction, that are now out of the streets. We have managed to arrest three persons, two males and one female, who were at the time in the house where the search was conducted. The BDF has already been brought into the picture. They have taken some information regarding the items found and they will come back again tomorrow to give us a final decision on what the police needs to do.

These are explosives that could cause serious impact, deaths in our society. All you need is a battery and connect all the components together and that will cause a detonation."

And though Police had all the evidence, the case against the accused in that case was thrown out earlier this month when the Police failed to appear to testify. But the problem of deadly explosives would persist and in September, it threatened the public's safety in an almost unthinkable way:
 

[Airdate: September 8th]

Jules Vasquez Reporting,
This was Princess Margaret Drive on Saturday night after police closed the area to all traffic. The beam of a flashlight marked the spot where a grenade lay wrapped inside a plastic bag. At about 5:30 just after the carnival had passed it was thrown under a nearby car, then picked up by an onlooker – who suspected something from the way it had been thrown. When he looked inside and saw it was an explosive, he put it in the grass and called the police.

The area was secured against a possible blast and about an hour later, Commander of Police Operations Crispin Jeffries stalked the perimeter waiting for the BDF bomb squad. They arrived led by Major James Requena, the BDF bomb expert who was watching the carnival nearby when he got the call about the explosive.

While the BDF got sandbags ready, 7NEWS was given access to the area as Requena went to the spot in nothing more than a flak jacket.

Major James Requena, BDF Bomb Expert
"Better you go a little further, 35 feet, from here to the fence. Give me a break here."

I went back but not the full 35 meters as I wanted to see the Major at work in deep concentration. A few tense moments elapsed but Requena was not distracted, and in a minute and a half Requena came out with a grenade in his hand.

[Security forces inspecting grenade]

Here it is, an L109Ai, British Fragmentation type grenade. Requena placed it in this metal case covered in sand, the object that could have injured dozens of innocent people now stowed in a case to be destroyed later.

Jules Vasquez,
What did you do just now?

Major James Requena,
"All I did Jules is pull the fly off lever, I placed an improvised pin back into the place where the pin was, I straightened out a paper clip, I straightened it and pushed it back through where you would normally have a safety pin and I held it in my hand and it is perfectly safe as long as the fly off lever is not off."

Jules Vasquez,
But if you had made an error, wow.

Major James Requena,
"That is the reason we are trained. If I had made an error, that is the reason I asked for the public to be cleared, my life would not here."

Jules Vasquez,
What sort of margin for error do you have in a situation like this?

Major James Requena,
"Minimal, very minimal."

Jules Vasquez,
And how did you feel in that moment, I saw your concentration, even amidst this bizarre environment, I see your concentration is intense?

Major James Requena,
"You have to have a seriously intense concentration, you have to block out everything else. You can't have any family problems, you can't be thinking about anybody. You have to think I will get it through and I will make sure nobody gets hurt."

No one hurt, but it was very close. As this illustration shows, the safety pin, this silver ring at the top had been removed.

Crispin Jeffries,
"Some of the working parts of the grenade that would have detonated it are still in tact but the pin was missing."

Jules Vasquez,
Why wasn't the grenade detonated when it was thrown?

Major James Requena,
"What happened is that they removed the pin and they put it in a plastic bag and they tied it and as long as the bag is tied and the fly over lever cannot come off the pressure cannot hit the top. So even though it was loosed a bit, maybe they expected the plastic to burst and it would have gone off but fortunate for them it didn't, fortunate for us thanks to the plastic. It's good."

Crispin Jeffries,
"I think we're very fortunate. I think that you could say God was with us for today because I think the nature, the ammunition nature has a 30 to 35 meter radius so in any direction from where the explosion takes place, persons or person would have been injured. In fact in the general area where we found the grenade, people would have been standing less than ten feet, five feet, or maybe standing right over that item."

And while this situation was effectively contained, will we be so lucky the next time? Sadly this law enforcement officer feels strongly that there will be a next time.

Jules Vasquez,
Who would do such a thing?

Crispin Jeffries,
"That is a serious concern and a question we will be asking for a long long time to come."

Jules Vasquez,
I know you found a grenade earlier this week and now you've found another one. how many more are out there?

Crispin Jeffries,
"The incidental thing here Mr. Vasquez is that this grenade is different than the other two so it gives greater concern to find out what volume is coming in and where they are coming from."


And where are the grenades coming from?  In the following months, that would become an issue of intense speculation.  Particularly after a second grenade was detonated in mid-November – fortunately this time no one was hurt:

At 7:00 on Friday night, those living near the corner of Caesar Ridge and Faber's Road in the Yabra Area heard a loud explosion. It sounded too thunderous to have been dynamite, and it shook the ground too soundly to have been a gunshot. It was what all Belize City residents have come to fear most in the past 6 months – another grenade, released this time inside an overgrown backyard. 7NEWS was first on the scene and Jules Vasquez reports.

Hortense Crawford, Port Loyola Resident
"The house shake and all. I said supposed the house fall down, what would have happened to we in here."

84 year old Hortense Crawford's home was closest to the blast – an upstairs abode about 40 feet away from this overgrown yard where the grenade was detonated. The general area is here at the corner of old and new Faber's road in the Yabra area – near the home base of a gang known as the South Side Gangsters – that's the "SSG" inscribed here on this fence.

7NEWS went in with some of the police who were the first responders and we found a scattered cluster of overgrown trees and bush. Underneath that this small depression marks the point of detonation and the perforations in these leaves and the disarray of the bushes show how the particles ripped right through. They also ripped through this zinc fence about 15 feet away, the highly charged shrapnel pellets piercing it in literally dozens of places.

But the real damages were done to the homes closest to the point of detonation. The Crawford home was the most at risk, 9 people live there, all women and children, in fact there are 4 very young children.

Kenia Wells was sitting in this bedroom where the shrapnel tore through the wooden exterior, and ripped through the cellotex wall inside the room. She was on the bed with her baby; just two feet to the left and a foot lower, and the outcome would have been frighteningly different.

Kenia Wells who wished to appear off camera told us what the explosion was like.

Kenia Wells, Area Resident
"I was in the room with my baby and I was getting clothes and pampers to go clean up there when this loud bang. All I could do was go on the bed and cover she down while the next one was in the hall with her auntie. The whole of their faces are still burning them, it feels like pepper spray on your face. I know my baby, she must have felt it most because we started to scream out. All I could do was keep her on the bed and don't move."

In the hours after the explosion, Kenia and her grandmother Hortense Crawford had to console their children while also trying to calm themselves.

Hortense Crawford,
"All of us were sitting in the place right so looking at television as usual. I said to let me go and straighten the bed and as I get up, boom, and I dropped back. I said oh my God what is that and my poor daughter is out there. You mean we will die and she isn't even here. That thing gone off, the TV, and two of the lights went off so I couldn't go nowhere, I sat patiently and then it came back on and I tell them what happened, why are they doing these things for. I said, ‘oh my God we are in a serious position."

And so are the police who had no immediate answers. Commander of Police Operations Crispin Jeffries scoured the bushes searching for evidence. At about ten he was joined by BDF Bomb Expert Major James Requena who was first briefed by Jeffries and then started to look for clues in the ground and in the immediate area. Following the dispersion pattern of the explosion he looked inside the trunk of this coconut tree, searching for a shrapnel pellet that was embedded there. And though he looked high and low, it was lodged too deep within the tree trunk to find.

Next he went inside the Crawford home, prying into the couch, and checking the floor for this key fragment that would tell him what kind of grenade it was. He found nothing inside the Crawford home but he did finally come up with a fragment when he checked the outer wall of an adjoining home, about fifty feet from where the grenade exploded and that's where he got lucky.

Major James Requena, Bomb Expert
"Offensive."

Jules Vasquez,
That small little particle?

Major James Requena,
"Yes. The grenade is designed that way then, it is designed that way so that when the explosion goes, it lets go at least two hundred and odd of this and the pressure which it moves, these are what cut through things. That is why I told you, once I find it I will know what we are dealing with."

Shortly after they found another fragment and continued to search all over the yard and in another tree, plying the trunk for one more shard. And when you see how hard he is digging, how deep he is trying to get, you appreciate how powerful the blast was to drive the pellet deep into the tree trunk. Too deep in this case to be recovered. A search in another home though did turn up a few more fragments and in total five were recovered.

Major James Requena,
"All indications are it was an offensive grenade. At the present time I cannot say what type until I find the fly-off lever or the pin. But definitely it is an offensive grenade because we've recovered five shrapnel so far. Offensive grenades are designed, that they have at least 200 or 250 broken down parts and when the explosion goes, as you can see from the fence, it goes through metals, trees – anything until it is lodged itself, still the velocity finishes.

With this somebody was either using it and it slipped from them or something because based on the direction that it hit, it is not targeted at none of the residents because if it was, it would have hit their target. It was in the back of a yard, not here nor there, but it affected three residences. So from my estimation, somebody had it, was testing it, it slipped from them, and they decided just to throw it."

And Requena says it is no plaything. It is a deadly and indiscriminate weapon.

Major James Requena,
"This is an offensive grenade. This is designed to kill. Whoever has these things, and I appeal again, please hand them in because you don't know what you're doing. You're not trained to use them and you will endanger yourself and loved ones. Don't play with these stuff, these stuff are designed for war. These are designed to kill, nothing else.

You saw what happened to the zinc fence, it went through the zinc, went through the coconut tree, went through a house wall, through one room, double wall, board wall, and then in a living room. It has a kill radius of approximately 150 feet which is the size of a football field but it can travel up to 230 meters which is 750 feet."

Hortense Crawford was sitting about 50 feet from where it exploded.

Hortense Crawford,
"For years I've lived here and this hasn't happened yet. We've been hearing gunshots, we've been hearing people getting shot but that didn't affect us because that was something was happening everyday."

Jules Vasquez,
How do you sleep here tonight Kenia?

Kenia Wells,
"I have to sleep because we don't have nowhere else to go. All of us are afraid, not only me one. I am afraid bad. My baby even said, ‘mommy gun pop,' but I told her it is not gun baby, it is not gun."

Hortense Crawford,
"Nobody got hurt. Satan was out thinking that he had power but my savior that is above has more power than him. I don't feel safe, I feel that something else might happen."

And that is the abiding fear that all Belize City residents have to live with in the urban terror era. And that sustained terror threat was ratcheted up a few notches when Lt. Col. Peter Germain, the Commander of BATSUB, told us that the grenade came from a batch the British Army brought into Belize in December of 2003 – a batch from which 24 grenades had disappeared.  This one exploded in Belize City and 23 are still unaccounted for. 
 
Add that to the September grenade which was also traced back to BATSUB and then factor in the 1,340 rounds of assault rifle ammunition that two BDF soldiers were caught smuggling out of the BDF two weeks, ago and you've got a very worrying security situation as it relates to criminal access to high powered weaponry. 

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