And while those officers found themselves on the wrong side of the law, there are plenty others who have been hunting down criminals. But still, crime is rampant and so far this year, we've had 18 murders. Today we asked the ComPol what can be done - but he said there's only so much that police can do since, ultimately, crime is not solely their responsibility.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Is it the police committing the murders?"
Courtney Menzies:
"Sir but you're responsible for catching the people who are."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"And that's what we're doing and at the end of the day we're doing a lot to avert these things and certainly were it not for the effort of the police, it would have been far more. Because the issue is not the police you know, the issue is our society, the fact that there is this propensity on the part of our young people to be violent, that is the issue. But certainly some people believe that the minister of police or the commissioner can stop crime, that is not our role. Certainly yes we do what we can to put policies in place and strategies to help to alleviate these issues but the police alone cannot do it. The attitude and the behavior of society need to change and until then, then we're going to be in this situation. Certainly we don't like when someone is killed because it's certainly affect society and it leaves people out there, perhaps children without a father or whatever the case may be and we try our best and that's the reason why the minister had pushed so intensely for us to have been able to do that program we're doing currently in Belize City with the different groups and try to see how we can get them in a program and make them productive within their respective area and yes it is working in some areas and just last week we discussed right around this table again with different stakeholders other things we'll be doing including starting a basketball tournament hopefully next month or so where we're going to bring the different groups together and try to see if we can do intervention through sports. We certainly believe that it is a good way to go this year to help us alleviate the problem. But I saw that a politician placed on social media that this is the bloodiest start we have ever had for a year and I would like to say to that politician, that under the previous administration, we had many worst start than this so we have to careful what we say and as the media you all have the stats, you can pull it out. In January this year, we had 13 murders, we have had Januarys with over 20 murder sin the previous administration so we have to be careful when we say things."
And we did check those records - in the past 13 years, the highest murder count for the month of January was 15, back in 2018. Most of the other months have been below a dozen.
