In last Friday's news, we told you how attorney "OJ" Elrington convinced a Supreme Court judge to grant bail to the accused gangsters who were profiling with what appeared to be illegal weapons.
Those defendants: Joseph James, Sheldon Grinage, John Grinage, Hubert Baptist, and Brandon Baptist, will have to stand trial in connection with that video in which they appeared to be promoting gang activity. The case may take several months to reach the trial phase, and more time will be needed to arrive at a verdict. But, they are not waiting. They have decided to step forward into the court of public opinion to assert that they did not release that video.
According to the accused, a person with malicious intent released that private video, which they insist was recorded 2 years ago. They say that this supposed mischief-maker was simply trying to get them into trouble with the police, thereby solidifying the "bad man" labels that they have been trying to shed for several months now.
This morning, those accused "gangstars" faced our news team and took on some of the difficult questions about that video. Daniel Ortiz has that story:
For those Belizeans who don't know them personally, defendants Joseph James, Sheldon Grinage, John Grinage, Hubert Baptist, and Brandon Baptist have made a terrible first impression. And, it's all due to this video, which was released 3 weeks ago. It pictures them as gangsters who are profiling with illegal weapons.
This video has landed them on remand for 3 weeks in connection with charges of being a member of a criminal gang and participating in a video that promotes gang activity. They were released from prison on bail just yesterday, after finally meeting the terms of the bond. Their chosen spokesperson has decided to come forward to apologize to the general public for the offending video.
Brandon Baptist - Accused of participating In/Promoting Gang Activity
"I just want to apologize to the public to make them know that we are not any public enemy or that we are causing any terror, or say anything by that video."
"It's not like we put that video out there. We are big men. We don't have to push out any video. That's a long-time video."
"That video was a mistake, really a mistake. It's not like we did that video, and said that we will publish it, or show people that we have this and we have that."
"Due to when you're doing good, bad always follows you, like what they always say. You're trying to do good, someone out of the way just went and put up a video, and escalate a video that is old, you understand me. And the person knows who he or she is too."
So, since they're insisting that someone with malicious intent leaked the video, we sought to find out about its origin.
Reporter
"How long ago was that video taken?"
Brandon Baptist
"To be real, that was like 2 years, give or take. That is no video that was recently made."
"I lost my phone when I just came out of jail. I lost my phone; it didn't have a code lock on it, and my Whatsapp [account] stayed on it. For some reason, you know that they have hackers, and they dealt with that and pushed that out there. The person is a police officer too."
Reporter
"Those guns look very real."
Brandon Baptist
"Well, they have a lot of - if you go to the paintball place, you'll see guns that look very real as well. You have seen all kinds of people posing. You'll see lawyers going there. You see police going there. Everyone goes to the paintball place to take pictures with guns the same way, line right up with some long guns, long rifles. And those things aren't even real, paintball. They sell those things all over the place. You can go all about and you find dummy guns that look real, that people are even committing robberies with."
So, while that's their explanation for the video, these defendants are also facing a charge of being a member of a criminal gang. Baptist had some interesting responses when we asked him about that directly.
Reporter
"It has been persistently insisted that you guys are from the supposed Backalands gang, and you guys specialize in drug trafficking."
Brandon Baptist
"I won't hide anything, everybody sells weed. They are legalizing it right now. Directly, we'll have farms of it. It's still a business. It's not anything that's hurting anyone."
"You go to America, it's the same thing. They have weed in jars; you can go pick it out if you want weed. You can go pick out any flavor that you want. Only, in Belize, you can't go and pick out a flavor. You have a draw, those police come and slap you down for it. They smoke too. They slap you down, take it away, and then they go home and roll it up. I got this nice kush here from Baptist."
Reporter
"While you answered a part of the question, I feel you avoided the other part, which is, are you and other friends and family members of yours involved with the Backalands crowd?"
Brandon Baptist
"We are from Police Street. I am not a Backalands Crip or a Backalands Bloods. We grow up around here, and all of us are friends around here. And nobody can stop me from talking to him, her, or whosoever. The first thing, they see us in a crowd, the first thing they jump to, is oh, that crowd is organizing. You meet Hispanics in a crowd right now, they won't even worry about them. They meet the Chinese in a crowd, they won't even worry about them. I won't say - we are not innocent because nobody is innocent. But, the same way, give us a chance and give us a break in life. It's not all the time that it's about negativity. We try our best to make things happen the right way."
According to Brandon Baptist, he and his closest friends and allies have started to exert a positive influence on the at-risk youths in their neighborhood. He says that whenever the police come flying in with hard-charging tactics, they always find that productivity taking place at his family's residence. They have set up a barbershop, a car washing business, and a yard cutting service, using equipment donated by Dr. Richard Rosado and his partners.
