Shawn Hertular is serving a 20 year prison sentence for murder but tonight he is in a critical but stable condition in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. At around 4:30 yesterday, Hertular was stabbed by a cellmate in the Tango One building. He was stabbed twice in the chest with an improvised prison blade known as a “bora” and one of his lungs has collapsed. His alleged attacker was Jeffrey Flowers who has been charged at least once for murder and a laundry list of other charges. Hertular’s family is outraged because they claim that prison officers did not respond to Shawn’s plea for help. At least that is what his mother Ana Hertular says her son told her.
Ana Hertular, Mother
“He told me that they put this inmate with him in the cell and that he was scared because the inmate has a beef with him and now I was made to understand that they moved Mr. Arnold to work somewhere else and they brought back the inmate at Tango One where my son is. My son said he was always watching his back but he went to answer a call and the inmate came up to him and hit him first and then stabbed him two times, one above his heart and one under his heart and he got his lung punctured too.
In the prison we are not even safe. My son said he was calling for help and he kept running and the three officers were there along with the prisoners and he said nobody came to his aid; everybody stood there and watched him get stabbed two times.”
Fiona, Sister in Law
“If your son get stabbed out here from yesterday you will want to know the minute your son get stabbed so you can be at his side. Why are they hiding it? Nobody came out and tell she what happened. Come on, they should have alert the lady long time. They didn’t handle the matter the proper way.”
Hertular’s family didn’t show their faces because they are concerned about their safety. And a prison official told us this evening that they couldn’t comment because the issue is sensitive. According to police they are investigating and flowers will be charged pending a prognosis on Shawn Hertular’s medical condition.
His family believes that the attack is related to the killing of Mark “T-Dog” Stuart – who was riddled with gunfire by prison guards in 2001. Shawn Hertular was in the cell with T-Dog when he was killed and the family believes that friends of T-Dog believe that Hertular might know more than he is saying.
Hertular again is serving a 20 year sentence for the 2003 murder of Denver Westby at the agriculture show in Belmopan. Jeffrey Flowers was charged in 2004 for the murder of William Staine Jr. and for stabbing a fellow inmate also in 2004.
