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And we return to the story I told you about before the break. That is the spate of murders in the Belize District between Saturday night andMonday morning. Today, the Minister of National Security, John Saldivar said that to curb the spree, it will take increased patrols and more importantly "social intervention."

Hon. John Saldivar - Minister of Police

"Well, we know the spikes have become a routine every now and then we get an increase in the amount of murders and each time we do - we try to re-strategise. We look at the particular areas that are being effected, the particular gangs that are involved. We try to talk to them, council them but we also try to reconfigure our patrols and our strategies in those areas and that's best as we can do now. We must recognise thought that a lot of these murders are really confined to certain elements within the city and the police department itself I believe cannot be expected to know each and every time that these people are going to commit a murder. We don't have a police on every street corner. We just got to keep working with it in terms of our patrols. I believe that more social interventions and speaking with these people to see how they can resolve their conflicts differently."

Allen Whylie - Commissioner of Police

"We have reconfigured a number of our patrols. We've implemented a number of vehicle checkpoints in all of these affected areas and we're maintaining the 24 hour presence on the ground, armed as well as unarmed police officers. We're doing bicycle patrols, mobile patrols, motorcycle patrols. We've also in one area put out our mobile command centre in the Vernon street area and we're ensuring that those places are being heavily patrolled. We're stepping up in terms of our stop and search in terms of persons we know are involved in the gang activities."

Whylie says more police officers will be deployed in the hot spots in Belize. We have noted before that since precinct policing was introduced as many as 350 more police officers have been committed to patrols in the city.