Last night we told you that police found another live grenade in the city. It was found in the Port Loyola area while police were on a special operation. No one has been arrested and police say there is no evidence to indicate this discovery is linked to the previous two grenades. Police say the batch number is different but the real worry tonight is that there may be a lot more where that came from. Assistant Commissioner of Police – and the Commander of Police Operations – Crispin Jeffries told us what he knows.
Crispin Jeffries, Commander of Operations
“I do know that it was found in a yard somewhere in the Port Loyola area. I have a specific yard but I don’t want to give the information at this time. We are continuing that investigation, we believe that this is one of many hand grenades in the city. Information may spook other persons who may want to assist us to find other grenades. We consider the heinousness of the injuries caused by a hand grenade to be a new thing and we want to attempt to prevent that.
The problem we see is that the grenades are coming in and we are getting rumors. We don’t even know how many are in the country but in fact there is in Belize City several persons claiming to have or to know where grenades are. We saw what happened and we know that these are very terrorizing situations, it is frightening for just the thought of it. The security forces are very much concerned about the safety in the streets of Belize City and it is a very serious situation when we look at persons throwing grenades.”
Keith Swift,
Are the police somewhat helpless when it comes to grenades because how do you fight grenades?
Crispin Jeffries,
“The weapon is a serious weapon. The grenade, the ones we have taken off the streets are known to be fragmentation grenades, they have a very wide radius, they can kill a large amount of persons who are in close proximity but it is worrying because we believe that hand grenades, the person or persons who have it in their possession don’t know the magnitude of the damage it can cause.”
Again the batch number is different than the previous grenades, one of which was detonated in May. The other was turned in a month ago by Raymond Gentle. Those two grenades were identical. The grenade was found during a special operation which Jeffries says will continue over the weekend. He says it is an intense version of operation cycle breaker.
