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Any act of violence against a defenceless person is just pure chance taking. But our next story is about an act so bestial it defies the description of “chancy-ness,” it is particularly cruel and vicious. And that’s what our next story is about: a cruel attack on a disabled young man – who is partially crippled and also unable to speak. But he’s well liked and embraced in the community – so he gets around – and over the weekend preyed on his social habits, to viciously beat down a teenager who literally couldn’t hurt a fly. Jacqueline Godwin has more.

Jacqueline Godwin Reporting,
Nineteen year old Kenrick Augustus better known as bolo is a familiar face around Belize City. Kenrick, who has cerebral palsy, is mute and partially crippled. The disability has made it difficult for him to hold a full time job, but he does what he can by running errands, helping at gas stations and gathering donations from the public.

Despite his physical condition Kenrick tries to live as normal a life as possible and that is exactly what he was doing when he went out to socialize at MJ’s Club on Saturday night. But as Kenrick made his way home around three on Sunday morning he was on Mopan Street when he was forcibly taken by two men into this alley way.

This is the alley that the men dragged their victim and started to stab him repeatedly. But as Kenrick Augustus was being slashed all over his body, the knifemen told him that they were going to kill him. One even remarked that this one is hard to kill. But the family believes what happened next is what saved their young one from being knifed to death.

Today I sat down with Kenrick Augustus and Yvonne Little at the family’s home on Oleander Street. According to the aunt it is a miracle that her nephew not only survive the vicious and bloody attack but he had the strength to fight off the armed men.

Yvonne Little, Aunt of Knife Victim
“Because he is an invalid person, he cannot stand up and fight for himself, to try defend himself. Probably God was there with him. Praise God that at least they didn’t kill him. That is all I wish, that they didn’t kill him and they didn’t so thank you God they didn’t.”

Kenrick received knife wounds to his left wrist, to the right middle finger, neck and gashes to his legs and face. Kenrick who is unable to speak used his voice to scream as loud as he could. That caused the robbers to run away after stealing eighty dollars but they didn’t go unscathed. While defending himself Kenrick scratched the back of one of his attackers and that is what helped him to identify one the suspects detained at the Queen Street Police Station.

Yvonne Little,
“And the two guys rushed him and they started action on him and just started juking him up, stabbing him, and he was trying to defend himself also because when I saw the guys this morning, he was all scratched up. That means he was scratching him. Well praise God they didn’t kill him. Thank you Jesus. They were trying because he said he was hassling them because they wanted his money and he said he wasn’t going to give them but the other one started juking him up, stabbing him.”

The weapon is believed to be a kitchen knife

Yvonne Little,
“The doctor looked on him and tended to his wounds. They were stabbing him by the neck here. They wanted to juk his neck and then his face, they dragged him on the street. He was crawling to go.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Is this the first time Kenrick has been attacked?”

Yvonne Little,
“First time because he is all over Belize and it is the first time this ever occurred to him.”

And while one suspect is now in police custody, the other knifeman is yet to be identified. Yvonne Little is just relieved that her young nephew was not murdered.

Kenrick Augustus attended Stella Maris School. Reports are he was born with jaundice and received a full blood transfusion but like what can happen in such cases when their is a delay in the blood reaching the brain the patient can be afflicted with cerebral palsy – and that’s what we understand happened to Kenrick Augustus.