There’s lost of heavy news to report tonight: first, there were three killings over the long weekend; second there has been a mini Cabinet shuffle....but we start in Belize City where a policeman is in critical condition tonight and the robbery suspect who shot him is dead. It all happened around four am on Saturday morning in the vicinity of Cinderella Plaza. The injured officers are Constable Isaac Wallace and Constable Jaime Ack. They were responding to reports of an armed robbery that had just happened. And it was their extremely quick response that set the stage for a deadly shootout with the pair of armed robbers.
Constable Ack was hit in the chest, pelvis, and upper arm and is still hospitalized. Constable Wallace was hit in the right leg and has been released from the hospital. The dead suspect is 20 year old Glenford Williams and his alleged accomplice Steven Lemoine is in jail facing a number of charges. Here’s what happened.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Robbery victim Isabel Funes told us off camera that around 2 on Saturday morning she was walking on Freetown Road in the vicinity of the De He Li Store when she was robbed.
Isabel Funes, Robbery Victim
“He grabbed my hand and knocked me in my neck. He told me not to move and don’t bawl. He said if I bawl I would dead right there and he had a big gun and put it on me. I told him to take anything he wanted but don’t hurt me. After that he said to go, he told me to go and I continued to walk. When I reached by Cambranes I ran and looked for my house and hailed my sister.”
Eastern Division boss David Henderson says they responded within minutes and found 27 year old Steven Lemoine and 20 year old Glenford Williams hiding inside
a yard at the corner of Lancaster and Yorke Streets. This is where the deadly exchange of gunfire between the robbers and cops took place.
Sr. Supt. David Henderson, Commander - Eastern Division
“At the corner of Lancaster and Yorke Street the police went behind the building and they were confronted by the two suspects where the police was fired upon, the police then responded fire, where one of the persons was fatally injured. Both of our police officers who were behind the building, they were shot.”
Glenford Williams was hit in the chin and right arm. He died on the spot. His family doesn’t deny his involvement but they say that it was the police who fired first.
Jolene Neal, Sister of Deceased
“We have to accept he is involved in the robbery because then everybody in the area where they say he got shot, they say he did go to rob somebody so we accept the fact that he went to rob. It is not nothing he is just doing, it is something that has been happening for a long time. He was hiding in a yard and in the yard that he was hiding in another man was with him and that he was the one who was the one with the gun yes but he didn’t fire first. It was the police who fired at him and that he got hit in the shoulder and that was the hit that made him fall and then when he fell that was the hit that made him take out his gun; he didn’t have out the gun at the time. That was when he pulled out the gun and he started to fire at police and that is how come the police got hit.”
Sr. Supt. David Henderson,
“I must say that prior to this incident, these same fellow, we went
in search of them because of an alleged assault. They were not found and so we know they were involved out there.”
And at a police press conference this morning, Police Commissioner Gerald Westby said he had no regrets over the death.
Gerald Westby, Commissioner of Police
“As far as I am concerned, the police could have been the one that was dead and I have no remorse to say that what happened out there could have been the other way around and I have no remorse as to the loss of life because I know somebody kid’s life was lost but as far as I am concerned, it was a wanton, brazen, and criminal act at these people.”
Keith Swift,
Are you sorry that the guy was killed?
Isabel Funes,
“Yes I feel bad the boy dead, such a young boy, but it was only for a money or a phone. For nothing he died so. I am sorry for the family too.”
Jolene Neal,
“He took my daddy’s death really serious and that is what triggered it off. He ended up on the street. I didn’t think it would really go like that. I didn’t think he would turn out like that. He was in church, he used to sing a lot, he was calm. When my daddy dead he said that how he was supposed to be the one looking out for us and he would take care of us. Well it didn’t come that way and it didn’t end up that way.”
Keith Swift,
Is the family angry, hurt, or….?
Jolene Neal,
“We’re disturbed because there is more than one story to this situation. People are saying he didn’t have out no gun but he threatened we already, yes, but as family members we still didn’t expect it to go that way. All I am asking is that they come together and come see us and let us get him into the ground, give him a decent funeral.”
Steve Lemoine received no injury and was today formally charged for with two counts of attempted murder upon Constables Isaac Wallace and Jaime Ack and two counts of use of deadly means of harm and dangerous harm. He was remanded to prison until April 14th.
