Peyrefitte also had a lot to say about the Hopkins mass shooting. He says the shooting marks an important and consequential shift in Belize's crime dynamic.
Though - as we told you in the first segment, the first mass shooting in Belize's history happened in 2008 under the UDP - in fact, DAYS after the red won - at a club managed by a party stalwart and future candidate….still, that one wasn't in little Hopkins, and UDP Shadow Minister Michael Peyrefitte insisted today that Hopkins 2022 marks an important sea change:
Mike Peyrefitte, UDP Shadow Minister, National Security
"When you get into a situation where people believe that there is no limit to the point where you walk into a public place in a place like Hopkins and just open fire in a public place like that without saying maybe there are two police officers here, maybe we should hold back - no, they just letter rip. That is a different level of violence."
Jules Vasquez
"Will you concede sir, that what we are seeing under the PUP is just another version of what we saw under the UDP which is crime that no one can control."
Mike Peyrefitte, UDP Shadow Minister, National Security
"I don't think it's the same. I think it's gotten more brazen; it has gotten more reckless. There is a wonton disregard for any sort of decency or normalcy in crime and not only that. This group said they had solutions. The current CEO and the current minister had all the answers when they were in opposition. They were going to do so many things and they have not done any one of those things and they use to trash state of emergency, now they are implementing that very same thing that they use to trashed us for."
Jules Vasquez
"It is a continuation of the same trajectory of crime that started under the UDP. This is just a part of the same arc which the UDP witnessed as well and which every effort was made, but the problem is as we say a wicked problem. There is no stoppage in the future, so it just continues to worsen. This is not new crime."
Mike Peyrefitte, UDP Shadow Minister, National Security
"You can go 2008-2020, you can go 1998-2008 - you can go back to when Christ was one. I mean you can always go back and compare, but what I am saying we are here now. We are here now and of we were in government from 2008-2020 the people in charge now had 12 years to prepare, they had 12 years to demonstrate to us how good that they could be with the curbing of crime."
"Whatever the trajectory may have been, you claimed to be some new jack cops to take on some new jack criminals. So where are your solutions?"
