7 News Belize

Sunday Slaying In The City: Skyers Shot
posted (December 5, 2016)
We turn now to Belize City where there were two murders over the weekend: two men were killed in the street. We begin with Sunday afternoon's murder. It happened at around 1:30 when 26 year old Emerson Skyers was at the corner of West Street and Cemetery Road - which isn't far from the notorious Taylor's ally base. A white car pulled up, someone rolled down the window and let off a burst of gunfire. Skyers died on the spot even though - as this video posted on facebook shows - a desperate attempt was made to try and rush him to the hospital. Still, he was announced dead on arrival. Police told us more:

ASP. Alejandro Cowo, OC, CIB
"Emerson Skyers was walking on Cemetery Road almost at the corner of Cemetery Road and West Street when a vehicle coming from the direction of Cemetery Road towards Albert Street passed him and a person from the vehicle fired several shots at him causing the fatal injuries. Up to now we do not have a motive in regards to the death of Mr. Skyers."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"Isn't there a permanent fixed patrol in the area at all times and did they see anything? Have they been able to contribute any concrete evidence?"

ASP. Alejandro Cowo, OC, CIB
"Yes there's a foot patrol and it is almost by the homeless shelter which is almost 2-3 blocks away from where the shooting happened which is a distance apart from the static patrol on that side. It was at a distance where the shooting happened."

Four persons have been detained. Today, police were dusting a car on Dean Street for fingerprints. They say that is believed to have been the car used in the murder.

Now Skyers has been in the news many times before, most recently as an alleged robber in the July 2015 armed robbery of First Caribbean Bank.

But, recently he had signaled that he wanted to change, and joined the Youth Apprenticeship Programme, which placed him at OCEANA Belize - where he was working productively. Today, the Director of the Program Dianne Finnegan told us that he was committed to personal change:

Dianne Finnegan, Mentored Emerson Skyers
"When it comes to Emerson, he's just a really cool guy, makes it to the program every Friday, he's at work when he's called on, always excited the moment an opportunity comes up, trust me I am getting a text saying 'Miss D you should have seen what we did today, Miss D should have heard what Shanel did for us, Miss D..'. It's their excitement, it's something new that has opened their life to being alive, for wanting to live and he was an excellent young man. He was just calm, he had a baggage that he was carrying and that baggage was wearing him down. It has no purpose in his life anymore and he wanted something different, he wanted some peace in his life. He was back in school, he wanted to prove himself to his partner, to his wife, to his babies. He's a man that has really built himself to become worthy of that name 'dad', to become worthy of that name 'husband', to just be an ordinary human being surviving. Yesterday when I picked up Emerson's mother who was just released from the hospital on Saturday and Emerson spent the day with his mom at the hospital. For her to now to return to the hospital to see him in the morgue, it's not easy. So we've lost Emerson, somebody else is going to pick up a gun to revenge Emerson's death and then the other person, so what is going to happen, am I going to wait until it reaches my son for me to then just start to cry out and say 'well it hit home now, so I've got to do something'? No, it's all of our responsibility to just give and contribute in some way to say we've got to find a way to end this because it's hurting people."

Finnegan told us that one of his friends who was on the street at the time may have been the target but he leaned down to pick up a child the same time the car with the gunmen passed. They then opened fire on Skyers. His girlfriend declined comment today.

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