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2017 has not been off to a good start for Belize’s murder statistics. It has been four days since the beginning of the year, and already five men have been gunned down. Add that to the one who was killed on New Year’s Eve, and we have 6 men murdered in 72 hours – or about one every 12 hours. 

They are Dillon Grinage, on Saturday night, Colin Sutherland on New Year’s Day, Robert Gillett on Monday, Kenneth Dobson, also on Monday, 19 year old Randolph Johnson killed yesterday afternoon, and Bert Abraham killed last night.

Yesterday during a joint press conference, the Commanders of the Belize Eastern Divisions committed to immediately respond to this killing spree – ut then two more murders happened – in the same area. Today we spoke with the Minister of State with responsibility for Police, Elodio Aragon, who told us about his plans to put an end to the New Year’s violent start…

Alex Courtney
"The New Year we've seen several murders in Belize City and in the outlining areas. What can you tell us about this new crime that's happening especially at the start of the New Year?"

Hon. Elodio Aragon - Minister of Police
"Well you know it's something that the government looks at very seriously. Definitely we wouldn't have wanted the year to start like this but this the reality of things on the ground right now. The police department is doing what it has to do to ensure that we deal with the situation. It's always a challenging situation when we have the amount of murders that we have had in the last 3 days. I think in total we have 5 murders thus far for the new year, we have already put certain things in place in terms of more patrols, we are looking at targeted areas, we are looking at dealing with the people who are directly involved and their associates and we are doing what we have to do on the ground to ensure that we curb the situation."

Alex Courtney
"Now sir can you talk to us about the effectiveness of this immediate response. We attended a press briefing with all the Belize district departments yesterday and the murder rate was at 3 but it spiked up to 5 that day. Is this immediate response is it working or is things that need to be changed around?"

Hon. Elodio Aragon - Minister of Police
"Well you know when you look at the police work it is something that is always operational, something that we always have to look at, reflect on and strategize and change definitely we have to look at what is happening and how better counter that and therefore it's always fluid. I could tell you right now that we have stepped up operations already; there is a plan in place already to deal with the immediate actions that needs to be done. A number of these things have already been taken place from last night and before. Of course we are working on it to ensure we keep a lid on this and that is the focus right now. Like I said as we progress in the latter part of this month or hopefully early next month we'll be able to unveil a strategic plan in terms of strategically at dealing with the crime situation that we have in specifically dealing with the firearms and gang related issues."

"But what I'm saying, I'm asking the public to give their support in this because it's not only an issue for the police department to deal with, it's an issue that affects our community and there's a lot of people out there who have the relevant information that can assist the police department to be effective on the ground in terms of dealing with the person who are directly involved in these shooting incidents and I ask the public to support the police."

Aragon says that more police will be deployed as part of crime suppression.