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Placencia Police-man Charged For Murdering Tyson Rodriguez
posted (December 3, 2013)
Murder - it's not a charge we hear brought against police all that often, in fact it's only happened a handful of times in the past 20 years, but tonight 41 year-old Sergeant Julio Shal, has been charged for the murder of Tyson Rodriguez.

As we told you, the 3 officers who had Rodriguez in their custody in Placencia were claiming that he died suddenly when he escaped from them. But, the post-mortem revealed that he suffocated from inhaling sand - and that he had chest trauma. The led his family to claim that the police killed him by holding his head in the sand, that is, after they brutalized him.

It's a terrible abuse of authority, and tonight, Sergeant Shal, is in jail after being arraigned in Dangriga Magistrate's Court today. An eyewitness has come forward to give evidence against Shal which completely refutes his version, and corroborates the findings of the post-mortem examination.

Today, family attorney, Audrey Matura-Shepherd spoke to the media saying that the Rodriguez family is pleased with the development, but not satisfied:

Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Attorney for Rodriguez Family
"The family is happy, but not happy because someone died and because someone was burglarized, robbed and beaten - happy because they feel that for the first time in a long time in this country, the police had the audacity to investigate one of their own. And not only investigate, they cooperated with the family. And I say with the family because as the attorney, I know they have been in contact with us and cooperating with us and providing information. So at this point, we don't have anything to say against them. It doesn't mean if they don't misstep sometime in the near future we won't say. But this is what we need to say; that for the first time, police have gone all out to do an investigation and as a result, Sgt. Julio Shal has been arrested and charged. To that what the mother has commented to me is that yes; one down and two more to go. Why do we say that is because Sgt. Shal did not act on his own. We know that there are at least two other police officers. But we will not take the law into our hands; we will leave the police to do their work. We will make all the proper authorities do what they have to do - let the DPP give her direction and everything and we will sit back and wait and see the system work. Wherever it is failing, we will step in. This is good news for them."

"And also, one of the things the mother wanted me to convey to the media and to the couple in the Placencia area that has been burglarized and beaten, she wants them to know that if in anyway there is proof that her son was involved, she personally apologizes to the family; that is not the way she raise her son, she would never defend any wrong he did; she really feels bad about anything. She was not in the country when it all happened and she believes that if her son is guilty, the police should have arrested, charged him taken the evidence to court, convict him and imprison him. at the end of the day, she is absolutely outraged that they would just kill him because the police cannot take the law into their own hands. The court system has got to work for us, the police has got to work for us and that is her position and I applaud her position."

7News spoke the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, who told us that the evidence coming forward does not implicate the other 2 officers who were with Shal at the time when Rodriguez died.

Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie is out of the country and Assistant Commissioner Mike Segura is holding over in his post. We attempted to reach Segura to ask what sort of action will be taken against the 2 officers who gave written testimony to investigators which fit in with the version of events Shal presented. This new statement from the eyewitness who has come forward would suggest that these officers gave false evidence. We made several attempts but our calls to Segura went unanswered.

According to our archives, in March of 2004, in San Igancio Corporal Julio Shal was charged with attempted murder for shooting a man as he stood on the street. Shal appeared to have been drinking and told the victim that he was being taken in for questioning - but instead he took him to an secluded area on where Shal is alleged to have shot him in the right arm.

A quick search of our records shows that Sheldon Arzu, Burton Caliz and Alpheus Parham are other police officers, all constables who were charged for murder in the last 10 years.

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