And while police hope that BDF to community dispute just disappears from their radar, the cops are keeping a very close eye on the number of murders.
Right now, there have been 94 murders countrywide for the whole year by our count. If the trend holds - Belize could register fewer than 100 murders for the first time since 2013 - when there were 99. That's would be more than 43 fewer murders than last year's 142.
Now, all this has to be put in the context of what has been a most unusual year. We've had two southside states of emergency - which did a lot to reduce violence. Plus, we've had months of curfew and quarantine regulations.
But there's also been good police work and that's what the minister and the compel focused on today:
Hon. Kareem Musa - Minister of Home Affairs "I want to say that it is multiple factors, at the head of that list I want to commend the Belize Police Department for their work. I want to also agree with you that the quarantine time that we had in isolation and all that contributed as well and the fact that we are having curfews, perhaps that also has an effect but if you recall, I think two weeks ago when we had that little spate of murders, it was all before 10 o'clock, and so there was no actual curfew that was in place at that time but it just shows you that criminal elements are getting even more brazen but again, it involves a lot different factors, excellent intervention by the commissioner of police, by Mr. Nuri Mahammad and other notable individuals and the Belize Police Department in their crime fighting strategies, so it's a number of components why the murder rate is low but I still want to take the opportunity to give that credit to where it is due to the Belize Police Department."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police "It has always been one of our greatest efforts to make sure we bring down the murder rate, a life loss really and truly takes a toll on a family and we try our best to avoid that from occurring, notwithstanding we cannot prevent al murders from occurring so, we just need to continue doing what we're doing, with a view to ensure that we keep that trend."
