The fate of the Belize Defense Force soldier who shot and killed a man at the San Pablo Community Center rests in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions. As we reported last night, 21 year old Kenny George Cortez was behaving drunk and disorderly on Saturday night at the community center where he and his family has been staying because of the flooding in Douglas. Two soldiers assigned to the shelter intervened but say that the unarmed Cortez started advancing towards them.
They fired two warning shots but claim Cortez continued to advance and that’s when Private Paulino Assi fired a third shot which hit Cortez in the leg. He was rushed first to the Northern Regional Hospital and then to the KHMH where he later died. His family yesterday called it murder but a post mortem conducted by Police Pathologist Dr. Mario Estradabran says otherwise. He certified Kenny Cortez’s cause of death as pulmonary edema or in simpler terms – lung failure. Estradabran says that because of the position Kenny Cortez was sitting in while receiving medical treatment – his lungs started to mismanage the treatment – retaining water.
And as for the family’s main assertion that Kenny Cortez posed no threat to the soldier and that he was shot from the back, Estradabran isn’t so sure. He does know that Cortez wasn’t shot from the front – meaning he couldn’t have been advancing towards the soldier. He says the shot was lateral – meaning it was from the side.
Orange Walk Police have sent the case file to the Director of Public Prosecutions for her determination if Private Assi will be charged.
