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Supal Street Shooting Grazed “Soup”
Tue, January 7, 2014
On the news, we talk a lot about the remarkable downturn in murders in Belize City in 2013 - but gun violence is still very prevalent, and too often, the sound of gunshots shatters the silence of the southside at night.

That's what happened last night on Supal streets when almost two dozen gunshots rang out, leaving the surrounding neighborhoods terrorized and frozen. Everyone wanted to know who got shot, or who got killed? No one did, very luckily, but one man was grazed, and an innocent elderly couple was caught in the crossfire. Daniel Ortiz has the story:...

Daniel Ortiz reporting
Terror erupted last night on Supal Street after 20 gunshots were fired, in what seems to be a botched gang attack.

Innocent residents were placed in danger after a gunman opened fire on Jason "Soup" Williams.

He told us that he was standing here at this maroon house, when he saw 2 men ride past him. He spoke to one of the men who greeted him as though everything was okay.

The man then went up the street, turned back, and then rode toward this alley here. Williams followed his movements all the way to that location because he found it very suspicious that the man returned.

When he arrived here, the gunman pulled out a weapon and unloaded a barrage of gunshot at him.

He got grazed on the leg, and he managed to take cover without getting any other injuries, but the gunman was intent on finishing the job.

The wild spray of bullets followed him, and the home of Delvith Retreage Sr., a Justice of the Peace, became the unintended target. Bullets ricocheted off his walls, but one of them penetrated his aluminum window, almost entering his house. Just sheer luck and the structure of his home saved his life.

That bullet passed through the window, but because is one of the entrances to their veranda area, they were spared when the bullet lodged in their concrete wall.

His wife, Norma, explained how their peace of mind was shattered by this attack.

Norma Retreage - Resident, Supal Street
"I hear the gunshots gone off, and I hear one of my windows gone like that and I said well that one caught my window. But I didn't open up and come out to see anything. Until a little while after that I decided to open this part of the window and look out. When I looked out I saw the Police out here and the whole crowd out here - I didn't know because I was afraid to open up. We shut up early, I was afraid to open up. After I saw that I decided that something must have happened, but I didn't know that something had bored the window, I didn't know. I was not on the verandah or I probably would have gotten shot."

These 2 elderly residents have absolutely nothing to do with any sort of gang flare up. They only live on the street, and whenever there is a flare up, they live with the fear of violence entering their home, very much like it did last night.

Norma Retreage - Resident, Supal Street
"I was so frightened and that's why I close up early. There are so many shootings all the time, I said let's close up. But this one I know hit the side of the house because of this window that got hit. When it touched that I could hear it plain, so I was wondering where the shooting came from. But when I looked out I could see the Police over there in the field, and I said it was probably from that side because there wouldn't be any other shooting around here."

Norma told us that she has absolutely no idea that the bullet ended up sitting on her veranda. As a matter of fact, she didn't even know what it looked like when she kicked it out of her house.

Norma Retreage - Resident, Supal Street
"I just find the bullet down there. I didn't even know it was a bullet because I have the children sometimes playing with little things, so I said it was something like that. So I took my foot and I knocked it out. I didn't know that was a bullet, because I don't even know how a bullet looks. But one of the young men found it down there and said that's the bullet. At least we were not on the verandah, or that shot could have gone through us."

As we've reported, Jason "Soup" Williams is the reputed boss of Supal Street Bloods. Residents told us today that it is very unfortunate that this incident happened because Supal Street had been quiet for months. Williams told us that he did not suspect that these 2 men would attack him in that fashion because when they rode past him the first time, one of the men greeted him casually, and they exchanged a few pleasant words before the pair rode away.

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