By now you're very well acquainted with the face and the name Laddie Gillette, the 14-year-old boy who was tragically gunned down on a Placencia beach.
It's a story that's pulled at every Belizeans heartstring with no one left unaffected. And among those deeply touched by the young man's story is Belize's Special envoy Rossana Briceno.
And this morning speaking with emotion and candor she told the hosts of SunUp on 7 about her experience with Laddie's story.
Rossana Briceno, Special Envoy for Families and Children
"As a mother, a 14 year old, my son is 17, my baby is 17 and he has a life ahead of him, he attended the protest in Orange Walk and when I got home he had on his black shirt, his black T-shirt with a red spray paint on his back. The shooting in the back and I said to him how do you feel? And he says I am not sure how I feel."
"I didn't know that he was going to the protest, I came home and He was in his back shirt and all of that but as a mother it affects you knowing that a 14 year old child was shot unjustifiably unreasonably, using unwarranted force, and this child because he's a child was no threat to that police officer. I am not here to condemn police, I am not here to condemn anybody but as a citizen of Belize, as a mother, and as Special Envoy, because my office is an office for advocacy. I totally agree that training is important, it's a must. Speaking to different police officers I found out that they get basic training for six months and then they're thrown into the field. I believe that after two years or even a year they need refreshers. They have policies, they have duties listed out for them but are they aware of these things?"
"I think that's the part that kills everybody. These young people were running away, they saw two people in black they're on the beach. They know it's curfew time they need to go home. People show up, they look intimidating, they look threatening. They don't identify themselves, human instinct would tell you to run, I would have run, sorry two people all in black in the dark, what if we sit down there and wait to see what would happen. No, you will run but I feel that whatever that police was thinking obviously he wasn't thinking straight. There were a lot of emotions going on and as an experienced police officer, I don't know how much experience he has but you know that your training tells you that the last thing you do is to shoot a gun. They're running away, that child is no threat to you so yes, I agree that there has to be justice, people need to know that the police officers are there to protect us not to harm us."
"They are supposed to be protecting us but we are afraid of them. Everywhere you go, the police are there, it has nothing to do with the police, you don't trust them. That trust level has gone and now with these cases that are happening. The murder cases have escalated and the situations now with the police it's like every week we have to be sending out a release from the offices from the NCFC, the human development, women's commission, my office. If we continue this way every week we have to send a release sympathizing sending condolences to families to women to parents. We have become a violent community, a violent country, we don't want to go to court anymore and talk, we do our own, take justice into our own hands. What, where will that lead us like a rogue country and we can't behave like that. So, I think for these to be fixed, or to improve our situation, the police definitely, I definitely feel that the commissioner has to do a criminal and an internal investigation especially in this situation."
"I think the police need to be held accountable. And if this police did something wrong then he needs to be held accountable and whatever consequences, he needs to get those consequences. I'm not going to mince my words here, It's wrong. A child is dead at the hands of a police officer, it's wrong."
