And though Waight was killed in the Gungulung area - which saw more gunplay this weekend, today the Police Minister and the LIU team were in the George Street area for a routine walkthrough. Minister Kareem Musa, along with LIU's chairlady, and other members of their team spoke with the community leaders about the different programs they are involved in, and what else they want to see happening in their community.
But while this area is calm, things are tense in the Gungulung area, and we asked the Minister what the department is doing to ensure there are no more murders.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"This is one of the routine walkthroughs that LIU does in the various neighborhoods throughout Belize City and they had asked me to join this morning, I did have some free time and I thought it was important just to touch base in the neighborhood to make sure everything is running smoothly with the work program, as well as other programs. You might have seen Bubbo was mentioning that he would want to convert this open lot into a very small football field, an enclosed football field for the young men and women in the area so that they can recreate in a positive way, and also hearing about all his successes at
the farm up in harmonyville, the fact that he takes a lot of the young men from this neighborhood up that side to teach them farming and agriculture, I am quite impressed, I have to tell you. And of course like I said, this is very important to let them know that as a government, we are committed to this program, it has yielded great success, we do know that currently there are certain areas of Belize City that there is some disturbance and we are doing our best not just form the LIU but from the police perspective also to address that concern and I'm speaking specifically in the Gungulung area, there is an internal war that is happening so you might see greater police presence in that area, so it's really just employing all the tools that we have to ensure that we continue on the positive track on reducing the number of violent crimes in Belize."
"We have employed all our efforts from the police department in getting stop and searches in the area, and putting police in strategic locations there and in the meantime trying to mediate between those bodies, those entities to see how it is that we can quell this violence and if not then there's also further police methods that can be employed, we're hoping it doesn't have to get there, we always choose peace before getting to that level."
