We also asked the Police Commissioner to discuss the weekend police operations in the border areas around Blue Creek Village in Orange Walk, and the La Union border crossing.
Last Friday, gunmen with suspected connections to a Mexican drug cartel had a shoot-out with Mexican lawmen in La Union, and that they could have escaped by hopping across the rio Hondo and crossing into the Orange Walk District.
At around 4 pm on Friday, October 29, the Mexican military and police were in the La Union Community, which is right across the border from Blue Creek Village in Orange Walk. The lawmen were reportedly conducting a house search for drugs, illegal firearms, and ammunition. Another account from the Mexican press was that that the shooting started because the lawmen saw a suspicious convoy approaching. They asked to stop and inspect the vehicles.
There were no casualties or arrests, but the Mexican lawmen did manage to seize vehicles and weapons which were left behind. That's because the members of the convoy fled and dispersed into the nearby forest on foot. They did manage to escape with drugs and high-powered firearms.
Elite members of Belizean law enforcement teams were activated in the event that the fleeing suspects tried to cross over into Belizean territory. Here's what the ComPol had to say about their readiness at the edge of the Orange Walk District and its border with Mexico:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"We did receive an unofficial reporting that there was some shootout between the Mexican law enforcement authorities and some cartels in the La Union area of Mexico. The unofficial reporting that we got also suggested that members of the cartels may have escaped Mexico into Belize. So what we did was to ensure that we place our composite patrols that we have along our northern unofficial borders to be on high alert and to mount sporadic VCPs in different key locations, areas where we believe that if those persons were to come to Belize would be their only access point. Those operations are still ongoing and up to now we have not received any official or unofficial information that the cartels who escaped Mexico, or who escaped that scenario in Mexico, came over to Belize. We continue to remain on high alert along our northern unofficial border areas, just in the event that any of those persons would show up, that we would be in a position to apprehend."
Police surveillance of these border areas continues tonight.
