So, while the Police Department has a lot of public relations damage control to do for the actions of these officers, the Mayor of San Pedro Town is worried that all this negative publicity will hurt the tourist visits for the Easter Weekend. Yesterday, he gave us a sit-down interview to make the case:
Daniel Guerrero, Mayor - San Pedro Town
"Definitely they are disturbing pieces on the video that was taken early morning around 4:30am more or less. An incident that happened by central park, actually right in front of what is Heritage Bank. I notice that and I think the video shows it very clearly. I think there is no one that can deny what happened by the use of power by the police officers - two of them there and I think they never followed protocol or the right process to defuse a crowd, but yet again, if we come back to the old saying "you need to create a fight," so we need to find the real story of the police and the real story of the people provoking the police."
"I personally think it's a very unfortunate incident that happened here in the town. Tourism is at its highest right now and Easter is getting close and we are just facing the first issue before Easter. I am hoping that this doesn't happen. I say the word "unfortunate" because people use the social media for everything. They don't realize how much damage they are doing to the island when it comes to tourism. But yet I understand and I can see the point of people frustrated, putting it immediately on the social media, because they want to call the attention to the central department, not only San Pedro, but including Belmopan."
"Fortunately, the following day, people from Belmopan, from the department came in to start up the investigation. I personally think that the police has to continue its job. They are here to make sure that law and order is on its place. We cannot let the people know okay - they will be reprimand or something. They have to slowdown. The police have to do their work."
"Unfortunately, the social media and the media are good at reporting negative, highlight negative reports, which is fine - all the bad. If someone is killed, if somebody got stabbed, if somebody got hang... you would see it big time on the social media. When the government and all the different municipalities are doing a great job and you don't see that out there."
Email
Print