The Commissioner also briefly discussed the unofficial count of 100 murders that have occurred so far for 2020, with only 8 more days to go.
When the press asked about that number 2 days ago, the Commissioner wasn't willing to entertain a conversation on the topic. But, we brought up the topic again today in the context of the official major crime statistics which the Belize Crime Observatory released on the first 11 months of the year.
He told us today that whatever the final number is for the year, the police department played a major role in the notable decrease:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Whether the murder count goes beyond 100 or not I still believe that the police department has done a herculean job this year in terms of combating crime. The last time we had a murder count near 100 was 2008 or 2013 at which time our population was far less than it currently is and at which time our gang activities were not as hype as they are currently and so it takes a lot for us to be to able to achieve that figure and so I want to tell the public and to say to the police that even if it is that we were one murder less than last year, it would have still been a good achievement for us. Every life we save is a plus for us. As a department we try our utmost best to ensure that we save lives, but we have to understand that we are living in a society where we have a number of young people who are lawless who have no regards for life and the police cannot prevent every murder. But I can also assure you that by way of our interventions and our patrols and our strategies our number could have been well above 200 every year, so the police needs to be given credit for this achievement regardless if you go over 100."
