And while the police conduct that investigation the commissioner has ordered the same in an incident where a police officer shot a B.D.F. soldier. A report issued by police states that on Friday night at 11:30, constable Eyon Ramirez and two other officers pulled up to a nightclub where they smelt marijuana smoke. They claim to have been searching a man in the club when a crowd of 25 men allegedly started to crowd the officers forcing Ramirez to fire two shots with a shotgun. The first was a warning shot and the second found its target in the left leg of B.D.F. soldier Arthur Danderson. That's the police's version, but we today spoke to Danderson who has a completely different version. He says the officer who shot him was under the influence of alcohol and that he was shot outside the club as he was going home:
Arthur Danderson – shot by police
“My cousin they call bones, he pulled me away the first time and he spoke to me and I told him I understand and to allow me to leave. He stopped talking to me and I walked around the crowd but the way Ramirez was walking, he was walking backwards facing the crowd and threatening the crowd with the pump. I was walking in the same direction so he thought I was following him stopped me and he began to threaten me. Bones came and grabbed me again for the second time, he grabbed me and I told him I was going home. So he let me go, he understood, he’s my family.”
“So when I’m walking away Ramirez and I met again because in the same way he’s walking out of the club yard so too I was walking out to go home. We met and at point blank range, less that a feet he fired the first round over my head. Up until yesterday I was brushing stuff off my head from the shotgun blast. That was the first shot he fired above my head. When he shot that over my head he asked me if I think he was serious. I told him to leave me alone and to allow me to go. When this was happening the crowd was acting rowdy, it was making a lot of noise, it was maybe about 25 people or more. Most of them were men there were only two women in the crowd. When this happened he was walking backward on the Western Highway because the club is right off the Western Highway. So he’s walking and I’m walking in the same direction. He stopped me in the middle of the highway and asked me if I thought that if he was serious. He was threatening me and telling me that he does not like BDF and that it was about time that a police shoots a BDF. He said he did not like Hattieville men period. So now when he shoot me I was on the other side of the highway.”
“When he did this the crowd was telling him to ease off and he was saying he doesn’t care that was the last thing he said. After he said this he stopped me and he cocked the pump and began pushing me around on the highway. He had the pump under his arm, he cocked it and he aimed it at my foot and he shot me in my foot. When he shot me in my foot he ran away towards Belize city. At this time the police mobile was still in the club yard. When the other officers saw that I was shot they drove to the police station leaving me there. The owner of the club and others picked me up to take me to the hospital.”
“I’ll take this to court. I did not do anything out of the way.”
The commissioner of police has ordered an investigation into this latest complaint of brutality.