She's, arguably, the most well known Belizean on earth. With half a million Instagram followers Joyjah Estrada is a big deal - and if you can't really contextualize that, let's put it like this: Prime Minister Briceno has 2,500 Instagram followers, Ms Universe Belize, Iris Salguero has 18,000.
So when Joyjah Estrada makes a statement, she has 500,000 people listening. And that's why the shrill shouts of outrage she posted on her Instagram story last night is not just another post about police abuse. Courtney Menzies reports:
Joyjah Estrada is Belize's favorite curly haired Instagram influencer - a Hopkins girl at heart, she has been featured on international magazines and has done collaborations with some big name brands.
But this week, she has taken a break from her busy career to celebrate her father's 69th birthday in San Pedro Town. But things took a sudden turn from celebratory to sinister last night after a police officer pulled a gun on her little brother.
Voice of: Joyjah Estrada, Brother Arrested For Mask Offence
"But the moment with the gun, if that didn't happen, I would not have brought it to social media at all but the fact that that happened, that was lack of judgement on his part, and I honestly saw mine and my brother's life flash before my eyes which was scary to me, very very scary."
Fearing for his life, Joyjah recorded her screams as she begged the officer to calm down.
It was a scary situation for this family who, only five minutes before were celebrating inside a restaurant. According to Joyjah's Instagram story, her brother, Jahday Estrada, went to buy their dad's age in Boledo but was not wearing his mask properly.
It should have been a ticketable offence, not one that would have a young black man staring down the barrel of a gun.
Voice of: Joyjah Estrada, Brother Arrested For Mask Offence
"So the officer then went on to say, weh happen? I gwen put it on for you, if you can't put it on - so he put it on and the officer pushed him in his head and once I saw that, I intervened and what I really want to get on the media and why I went on social media to share the story and everything that went down is because I feel like that officer - it was poor judgement. He pulled out his gun and that was not supposed to happen at all and once I saw that I was like, this was not supposed to happen, I stood in front of my little brother, I told him to please relax, the situation did not need to be escalated at all."
Joyjah then alleges that the officer threatened to pepper spray her entire family after they jumped in. And rather than issue the ticket, the officer then locked up Jahday at the station. She said they waited for hours for him to be released.
Joyjah Estrada, Brother Arrested For Mask Offence
"They did not give him a ticket which was supposed to be the case so he was outright treated unfairly, and it wasn't until a lawyer called in, I got a lawyer to call and that's how my brother ended up coming out. There were literally no words or nothing exchanged, they just let him go. And we got him. But we waited outside of the station for like 2 hours before that happened."
And she also says that she won't let this cop get away so easily.
Joyjah Estrada, Brother Arrested For Mask Offence
"I'm glad I'm doing this interview with you just to bring awareness to what happened, I'm sure that a lot of people saw it over my platform, it literally has over 60,000 views right now. And the next step for me is I will file a report, I will go to Belmopan, file a proper report, and I will see to it that this police officer - I don't know, maybe he goes back to training or just outright gets fired but I see it happen on the news, I know of different cases that has happened and I feel like it will be a long way before that actually happened but I will make sure I use my voice because I know my family isn't the first family that goes through something like this."
"I'm going to be hoenst, it's not the first time a police has approached my brother, but outside of that my brother is not getting into fights in the street, he's not theifing in the street, we're all very - we carry ourselves like… we were brought up the right way. But this is just something that we always have to look out for, not necessarily me, but just my brother, just the way he look. But to me, my brother doesn't look different at all, just like a black man. But we have to be careful."
Joyjah says for now, the family is trying to put the incident behind them to continue enjoying their vacation.
