Moving back now to Police news - we know they cops get a bad rap for all kinds of stuff - brutality, bad manners, bad timing and bad ways. Some of it is fair, and some of it is not. But last week, they also got scrutinized for bad spelling. That perception got backed up by a now-viral medico-legal form that had been written with suspect terminology.
That form - leaked from the Southern regional hospital - listed an injury which was classified as a quote: "Guava to the Farrid."
When asked about it today, the commissioner laughed and said that the viral form people took so seriously was actually just a prank.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I don't know what people think at times, but everything in Belize makes news and sometimes the news outlets do not even stop to think as to whether or not what is being put out is the reality. The truth of the matter is that matter was a prank that the officers in Dangriga did among themselves. It was not an official medico legal form that was issued for someone to go to a doctor. It was only a prank between them and you all have seen a number of medico legal form issued by police before. Have you ever seen something like that before, no. it was just a prank between the offices and someone put it out and it made news and people begin to say that the police is illiterate. I can say emphatically that our recruitment process is such that we recruit qualified people. Many of our entries are persons with associate degree, bachelor's degree, high school, the very least and in a case like that if it were true, a true medico legal form the proper description would have been a swelling on the forehead and that's what you would normally see. So that itself would have said to those people who made it news that something was wrong. It was just a prank."
