If you were tuned into our "Covad" elections coverage on Wednesday night, you would have seen our footage of John Saldivar's emotional reaction when he learned that he had been re-elected once again in Belmopan.
But, since then, a video has gone viral on social media which captures another angle of the emotional announcement. Someone in the celebrating UDP crowd fired a gunshot as a sort of gun salute. That's called "discharging a firearm in public" - a serious gun offence.
But, the video captures Saldivar going to the shooter's rescue, and this caused public outrage because it appears that the former Police Minister is forcing on-duty officers to back off someone who just broke the law because he is a UDP supporter. Tonight, we have a closer look at that video for you, and Daniel Ortiz has that story:
Daniel Ortiz reporting
The video starts with the loud noise and cheers of supporters. Then at the 3rd Second in, you clearly hear the sound of a gunshot.
Wherever that happens, the cell phone footage does not pick it up. There is a bit more celebration between Saldivar and his supporters and at the 12 second into the video, a man rushes over with an urgent message. You can't quite make it out clearly what he is saying. He then proceeds to drag Saldivar over to the police, and the photographer gets caught by the wave of people passing by.
At the 25ft second of the video, the camera catches up with about 3 or 4 male officers appearing to detain a man. He is their suspect for firing the gun and he has his hands held up to the police and..
John Saldivar - Re-elected In Belmopan
"Back off now!"
That's right you heard him clearly command the officer to release this man they obviously intended to detain.
Now, this is an officer of the law doing his duty to maintain public order, but he is unable to take any further action against this man, and the crowd then wrests the man away from the police officers who were starting to detain him.
In our own footage, he see this same man, who police intended to take into custody, with Saldivar hoisted on his shoulder. Saldivar continues to celebrate his victory in jubilation.
We messaged Saldivar for comment and he text messaged us back, saying, quote,
"A UDP supporter reportedly fired shots from his licensed firearm in a celebratory manner. The police immediately seized his weapon and were in the process of detaining him when they were surrounded by a crowd of UDP supporters. I felt that the situation could have escalated into an ugly one and therefore asked the police to desist from detaining the fellow at that time. The police obliged and for that I am grateful as one could only imagine what the situation could have been like if the crowd had turned into an angry mob. After that incident I did not attempt to prevent the police from later detaining, questioning, or charging the individual. The matter is with the Belmopan Police."
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