Dean Barrow
The overnight violence in Belize City immediately prompted Prime Minister Dean Barrow to call a meeting with the brass of the Belize Police Department to address the ongoing reprisals that started with the murder of Cyril McFoy, the father of Brandon Tillett. While additional boots will be placed on the ground in the streets of the Old Capital, the police department is also planning to step up its intelligence gathering efforts. This is in an attempt to stem the ongoing wave of shootings that have occurred beginning on Wednesday at two o’clock. To stem further violence, P.M. Barrow also announced that six of the major players, believed to be involved in the rash of shootings, are tonight in police custody. While they cannot as yet be charged with the crime of murder, other charges will be brought against them in the days ahead.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“I have just met with the police high command I asked for the meeting as a consequence of what occurred yesterday subsequent to the murder of the father of Mr. Brandon Tillett. You know that that led to a rash of shootings resulting in a number of fatalities and other persons sustaining gunshot injuries. Naturally, I and the government of Belize, we are very concerned about the chain of events and I wanted to discuss with the high command two things: what was done immediately after the murder of Tillett’s father given that we clearly would have anticipated the retaliation, clearly that we would have known that it would be swift in coming. I wanted to know what was done to try to contain the situation and I wanted to know what will be done going forward since we cannot assume that this cycle is at an end. We had a discussion that was useful, of course, I am prepared as I always have been to provide whatever additional resources the police will need to carry this thing forward over the longer run and certainly whatever resources are needed now to deal with the immediate prospect that’s confronting us of the continuation of this cycle of violence, of retaliation. I am satisfied that certain things have already happened that can offer us some small degree of comfort that is a number of the major players that were being sought as part of the effort at containment immediately after the trigger incident, no pun intended, who are not detained as quickly as I would have liked caught and incarcerated as quickly as we would have liked. I am satisfied that because they are now in detention that certainly one step in the right direction. I’m also satisfied that the additional efforts that are going to be put on by the various sub agencies of Eastern Division and the Belize Police Department ought as well to assist.”
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