Police brutality, it's a subject that never fails to incite public anger, and deservedly so.
Time and time again we're forced to confront the question of what happens when those who swore to serve and protect instead inflict unwarranted pain on suffering on those in their charge.
Tonight, Belize's most recent allegation of police brutality comes from Orange Walk, that's where Attorney Marcelo Cardona, yesterday, recorded the testimony of 16-year-old Jon Carlo Urbina, a minor who he claims had been abused at the hand of police.
Today he told our colleagues at CTV3 about the moment that prompted him to take action:
Marcel Cardona, Attorney-At-Law
"I said what happened to you young man and he tells me that he is in pain that apparently he was brutalized by police officers, a police officer or police officers so I immediately instinctively, pulled out my phone and I said you know something, they always say that it's my word against your word and etc but you know something, let me pull this out immediately and let me record the, what's going on. So I pulled out my phone and I recorded the young man explaining to me what was happening whilst the police is insisting in a very bullish way trying to force the young man to get out of the police station and accompany them to the back but I took some footage of it and I went through the channels of contacting the commissioner of police to inform him of the situation immediately because any case of police brutality is a case that should never take place at all. There should be no room for police brutality in our system it doesn't matter what the young man is accused of the fact is this there are procedures to be followed and those procedures do not allow any police officer to use excessive force or unjustifiable force against or a person in this country."
Cardona also indicated some element of a familial connection between the minor and one of the officers in question.
He says that the family is calling for a full unbiased investigation into the young man's detention. Today we asked the Commissioner for comment and he said the police did give the detainee a medico legal form as required.
