Email

Print

This afternoon the media was invited out to the Jane Usher Basketball court - where officers of the Eastern Police Division South distributed school supplies to over a hundred students. It is a part of their community policing efforts to build stronger relationships with members of crime ridden communities. The back to school initiative started in the Jane Usher neighborhood today. The Officer Commanding explained:

But, while the police build community partnerships – murderous, gang related crime still occurs. The media asked Williams about the apparent murder of 28 year old Joel Bishop and also the meeting that was held on Monday with members of the PIV and Supaul Street gangs – whose feud may have led to the murder:..

Sr. Supt Chester Williams, OC - E.D. Southside

"We continue our police community initiative and what we're doing here today is one way for us, the police giving back to the community. Whereby a lot of children in the Jane Usher Boulevard area who are needy. The parents cannot provide for them that they would need to go to school. So we say the need and took the initiative to seek contribution from different business establishments including VIP wireless. We have Mr. Omar Ortiz who assisted us. You have Dr. Carla Barnett who assisted us from the Freetown division area. With that we put together a total of 84 bags and the bags include in it exercise books. Some have up to 6 exercise books in them and pencils, pens, geometry set for the high school ones. Toothbrush in some cases in the bags; so the bags are full loaded. We are distributing to primary school, high school and preschool students."

"The event we have had before was more geared at those persons who are already caught up in the criminal justice systems in some way or the other. So what we're trying to do today is to try to reach out to the younger youths. As you have heard we said before, that we are now embarking on recruiting the young children from the different areas to become part of the police cadet corps. So this is a way to start and what we want to do is when we have them in the police youth cadet corps, we'll do this for them every year; because we want to take care of these children who are under our responsibility to ensure that they have what they need to go to school on a daily basis."

Monica Bodden

"Will this initiative be done in different areas?"

Sr. Supt Chester Williams, OC - E.D. Southside

"Yes, I am planning one for the Mayflower area next week. So again, the two areas. So the 2 areas of focus a lot on since I came has been Mayflower and Jane Usher and it's because of the fact that when I came, these were the 2 areas that were creating problem for south side Belize City. So I'm doing a lot of intervention, I'm doing a lot of community policing in this area to show the people of this area that you know what; you can work with the police and the police can work with you. We the police see you as human beings and we also want you to see us as human beings. And hopefully once we can do that we'll be able to understand and correlate more closely together with each other."

The family of Joel Bishop is still awaiting the results of his postmortem to determine what caused his death. The young man was beaten and then ran over by a vehicle on Saturday during an early morning brawl on Newtown Barracks.

Sr. Supt Chester Williams, OC - E.D. Southside

"My thing is that, as much as people may want to look at us and say that; on south side we're doing social policing. That may be true but separate and apart from the social policing that we are doing, we are also enforcing the law. The operation team and other police officers are out there on a daily basis, conducting stop and search. I will tell you, last week alone, we took 5 guns off the street of Belize City on south side. So that just goes to show you that the police officers on south side are not just only doing social work but we are also doing policing. As I've said before as well, that we will work with those persons who want to make that change. And those who refuse to make that change; then we will relentlessly pursue them and ensure that we catch them doing the criminal act; then we send them where they want to be. Now as it related to the incident over the weekend on Northside, these are not 2 new groups. The south side; the PIV and Supal street gangs have been in existence for many years. But for some reason or the other they were not having that feud amongst themselves but not a feud has developed between them.

"So what I did this week, with the assistance of Ms. Finnegan and Mr. Douglas Hyde again; we had an intervention with them. We brought in both groups, including a third group, the bakalang group; the bakalang group are those from Lacroix Boulevard. A group of young people who, again were causing problems in the St. Martin's Boulevard area; and they have rivalry with PIV gang. So we brought 3 of the groups in and we had mediation with them. All the key players were involved. And just as we have done with the other groups, we let them know what our position is. You have 2 routes to choose from. You either choose the route to work with us and ensure that you keep the violence down or if you continue to perpetrate criminal acts then we will pursue you. The meeting I must say was successful, they understand; and I must say that in that meeting also, we invited the commander of the GSU, Mr. Flowers to be a part of that meeting. And he too also tell them what his position is from a GSU perspective. So they can know; you know what, the police are not only out there to lock you down or to mobilize you. The police want to work with you and Mr. Flowers, as much as we may want to think that he's not community policing oriented; he too want to pursue the same course of action that I am doing. Meaning, going out, talk to people, meditate and see what we can do to mend fence among those persons who have problems amongst themselves."