After the murder rate spiked in February, March and April, there hasn't been a murder in Belize City since mid May; plenty of shootings, stabbings and armed assaults, but no murder. Today though there was one. Again, it was on the city's southside, and it could have been triggered by a non fatal shooting that happened in May. Robert Jones was executed in broad daylight by a shooter who was determined and brazen. It happened after 11:00 just behind the BWSL main office. 7NEWS visited the scene.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
Loose sand has been thrown on the spot where Robert Jones known as ‘Black' was killed. It's the yard adjoining the one where his mother lived. Eyewitnesses say the 24 year old father of three was on Evergreen Street in front of his mother's house when a gunman pulled up and started firing at him. They chased him into this adjoining yard and shot him. His mother Sonya Dawson asked that her face not be shown.
Sonya Dawson, Mother of Deceased
"He shoot ah offa di street inna batty. Because he was running he got it in his batty, the first shot, and then he ran into the yard behind my son, in my neighbor's yard behind my son, and he just started to shoot my son so he intentionally meant to kill my son."
Marla Bood was in the house when it happened. She asked to appear off camera.
Marla Bood, Witness
"I heard like a pop shot, I thought it was pop shot. I heard like three first and then the fourth one I heard and so I looked through the window and when I looked through the window I saw this young man running in my yard behind the yard with his hands up firing."
Jules Vasquez,
But that's extremely brazen to come in someone else's yard.
Marla Bood,
"Exactly and big day and opened up because you know didn't have on any mask. I would have seen if he had on a mask or something like that. He just brave and like he didn't mercy or anything like that. I mean anybody could have been around."
And more than that, he shot Jones after he had fallen. An execution before midday and this mother who's now losing her second son to violence has had enough.
Sonya Dawson,
"He has three kids, today is his son's birthday, and on Sunday I had a son that died from gunshot too, it will be twelve years Sunday and then this other one just came and dead too by gunshot. But I always say, two of my son dead by gunshot and so I could kill. Once I get hold of a gun, I could kill. All I want to say to him is that he must hide because once I know who it is, I could kill ah – once I get hold of a gun."
Police hope that the security camera at the rear of the BWSL building which overlooks Evergreen Street can provide some useful information.
Police went to review the BWSL tape this afternoon but we have been unable to determine if it provided any useful images. The deceased Robert Jones came off remand for aggravated assault in June. He was accused of shooting Darrell Grant on May 18th. And we'll have more crime news coming up later as we take you to Spanish Lookout where a Mennonite family tells us the terror of a home invasion.
