And while Hattieville police are ready to bring those charges, Orange Walk Police are still seeking the young man who killed a 17 year old August Pine Ridge resident in a gang ambush on Saturday night. One gang of roving young villagers pounced on a fellow villager from another area of the community whom they disliked apparently just because he was from another area.
It's the kind of explosive gang type violence that small communities aren't accustomed to but those seething internecine rivalries exploded into graphic violence on Saturday night.
Alfonso Noble was in August Pine Ridge all of yesterday looking for answers and he has this report.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
The grief was almost unbearable for family members as 17 year old Trinidad Sanchez was delivered in a casket to his home village in August Pine Ridge village in Orange Walk.
[His mother crying near casket.]
69-year-old Florencia Ku was an eyewitness to the slaying of the 17 year old. She says that on Saturday night at around 10 a group of young men stormed into this grocery store chasing him. Her husband who was taking care of the shop chased the young men out and that's when the attack got very violent.
Florencia Ku, Witness
"The young man entered the store to hide but the man told them to get out. The ones who wanted to beat him were dragging him out."
"It was a big crowd."
"I was waiting for the young man to get up because I thought that he had been knocked out. I was standing when my grandson came along. My grandson lifted him up to see who he was and he recognized him. It was then that my daughter came running and tried to give him CPR."
"When my daughter held him up he passed blood from his mouth. That's all I saw. Even I did not know he had been stabbed. Afterwards the people came and took him in a car and said that he was stabbed he died instantly."
Margarito Sanchez, Victim's Father
"When they called me they told me that he had been injured. When I went to see him he was laying on the ground bleeding, he was already dead."
Trinidad was stabbed to the right side of his chest; his heart and one of his lungs had been punctured causing his death almost instantly. For his father Margarito, the loss of his son is unbearable because their was so much hope in this young man.
Margarito Sanchez,
"I'm very sad because I had a lot of hope for him. He was a student at UB in Belmopan studying natural resources management and all of this is causing the family and the entire village great sadness."
"He never had any problems with anyone in the village, we do not know how he reached there. We only know that he reached and was killed. According to what I understand he left the church's fence and went there. He had not been there for two minutes when he was dead."
The suddenness of Sanchez' death and the unexplained attack now leaves the father with nothing but advice for the young men who attacked him.
Margarito Sanchez,
"I hope that my son Trinidad's death is not in vain, that they realize that what they have done is something that is wrong and that with his death they take heed to straighten their lives."
Advice that could be well taken even if it will never return the life of this 17 year old or the hope to this profoundly saddened family.
Police say they expect to arrest the culprit who is on the run within the next 24 hours. He is believed to be seriously injured as he too was ct during the fight and police believe the need for urgent medical assistance will force him to resurface.