7 News Belize

Southside Commander Says Police Didn’t Slack Off In Jane Usher Blvd Area
posted (May 10, 2017)

Williams also spoke to us about Monday's murder of Ludwin Lalin, another 19 year old who was shot not far from his home on Curl Thompson Street. Lalin was killed the day after police held a family day in the Jane Usher area to try to defuse growing tensions in the neighborhood. Williams updated us on this investigation while disputing claims that police had reduced their presence in the area prior to the shooting...

ACP Chester Williams - Commander, Southside Police
"Mr. Lalin was shot and killed two night in the Jane Usher Boulevard area and again just like Bonilla we have no gang affiliation. Yes he might have friends who have gang affiliations and it could be that is one the reasons why he was targeted. We currently have two persons in custody we are interviewing in respect to that matter. We know it happened at broad daylight and they are persons who may have witness what happened but the usual difficulty is to get those persons to cooperate and give statement to the police and so they are many obstacles moving forward but we'll try to see how best we can get the relevant statements to be able to deal with those persons who we believe are responsible for the murder of the young fellow Lalin in the Jane Usher Boulevard area."

Alex Courtenay
"In gather information about the murder we heard from several residence as well as the family that they felt that the police presence in the area was lacking in the week or so previous. We know that you guys had the family day in the area, the Port Loyola area because you felt that there was tension in the area and there is also a police booth that is generally unoccupied according to the residence; is that lack of presence maybe a lack of foresight on the police's behalf especially knowing that there is that tension in the area?"

ACP Chester Williams
"I would not say that there is a lack of police presence because if you notice our fleet of vehicles, we have a vehicle that is marked Jane Usher patrol and while yes we have a booth it is good to have the booth occupied but do we want the police to be sitting in a booth and only protection two or three families or do we want the police to be in a vehicle to cover the entire area is something we must think of. We provide security of police protection to a community and so we believe it is better suited to have the officers in the vehicle patrolling the entire area to provide that level of security to everybody within the area. Yes we know that the criminals will monitor the movement of the police and wait until the police is elsewhere before they strike and if we go and interview the people who operates the shop where the young man was killed they will tell you that just about two to three minutes before the young man was killed, the police vehicle had passed through; so in terms of saying the police presence was absent then that is a statement I will have to refute as well."

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize