Email

Print

As we told you, Sotz's family and the entire community of Caye Caulker rejected that story as legitimate, and now they have legitimacy with the post mortem report, the criminal charging and the actions of the Police Ministry.

Today, we spoke with the teenager's parents and they told us what's next now that they are sure that their son was killed:

Santorino Sotz - Father of Deceased

"I went to the Queen street police station to meet the officer and they took us to the doctor. So they went into the office - we stayed like an hour. The police doing their jobs, when they came back they took us back to Queen street. So we gone to the office and the head of the police told us that my son never died by natural death. Because the doctor proved that he get hard licks in his head because they find blood on his head that would cause to killed him and they find in his heart hard thick blood like they slammed him - and that is what caused the death. So that's why the police told me this morning that no matter what kind of officer, they will deal with it and they will find later on what kind of charge those two officers will get. Because my son never died by natural. My son isn't sick, I know hundred percent that they killed my son. That's why I always say it's them - and you see the proof now? My son never died by natural death. They are saying my son just stop breathe. My son stop breathe because they done cut his wind, punch him up, knock him down and the proof is here now. This, I will deal with them because my son just died, they cut his life."

Carmelina Sotz - Mother of Deceased

"Relief..... inside. My heart it feels like I'm not living. I adored my son, I love my son. All I'm asking for is I want justice, I want them pay for my son's life. They won't bring him back alive. That's what I'm asking, I want justice."

They've gone to attorney Dickey Bradley to press the issue of the unlawful death of their son, and today, he spoke with us and shared his thoughts as a senior attorney who's seen cases like this one before:

Dickey Bradley - Attorney of Sotz Family

"We think the information that has become available to the mother and father of Hilbert, confirms their worst fears and suspicion - which they have publicly shared with the people of the country that; Not for a moment you would believe that their son just died suddenly from some breathing problem. In fact I think that the police is given a fairly truthful description - Hilbert must have died from some breathing problem. Because the doctor's certificate although it is courts in medical terminology - indicates clearly that from the several description of the cause of death, it could not be that he just died from some natural breathing problem. This has happened against a background in our society that we know that some police officers - not all. There are many good police officers but there are some police officers. There is no policy at police stations across the country and so this ongoing complaint that your station and other television stations have been reporting to us as citizens is an ongoing parade of people being abused by police officers. It is encouraging to have heard officer Broaster say that these things are not going to happen in the city - they are happening. They happen in the islands, they happen in the villages across the country. The family is in the deepest of grief. The sudden death of her son who's going to college is something that unless you feel that you can't really appreciate what is happening. Our hearts at this time is with them. Will take a long long time for them to find healing. I'm sure as they have indicated that they don't want this matter to go like that. We're here on pro-bono basis to assist them in order for them to have some form of closure, to get some justice. If in fact the investigation confirms their worst fears that their son has some how lost his life because of the unprofessional behaviour of police officers. The proper thing in our society now, especially because the people on the island, one hundred percent believes - surely they must see and suffer abuses by the hands of police on the island. The way San Pedro has been going through - massive police abuses of citizens out there, that the people on the island are in solidarity with the family and we would hope that there is an apology and proper compensation without the need to have to go to the supreme court. "

We've tried to get an interview with the attorney representing the police officers, but he was unavailable all the way up to news time.