Their uniforms aren't as flashy as the anti-drug unit and they don't always make the news like the Crimes Investigation Branch. But truth be told the Zone Beat Liaison Officers are on the frontline of police work. And we don't mean frontline like the riot squad, but the 36 officers assigned to the ZBLO are on the frontline of the police's mission of forging closer ties with the community. Today ZBLO officers from the Belize District gathered in Belize City for a conflict resolution workshop.
Keith SwiftReporting,
Today Zone Beat Liaison Officers left their beat on the streets for these seats in the St. Ignatius Parish Hall for a workshop on conflict resolution, conflicts like the one Constable Florentino Rash encounters daily on his beat out on Caye Caulker.
PC Florentino Rash, ZBLO Caye Caulker
"We have problems between parents and children. It mostly comes from adult problems because the children are on the streets and they have no control over the children with their work."
And to solve those problems, PC Rash and the other men and women of the ZBLO aren't equipped with guns or batons, Superintendent Yolanda Murray who heads the community policing department says these officers are equipped with people skills not bullets.
Supt. Yolanda Murray,
"They don't go with any guns into the bases to work with Youth for the
Future, they go there and they speak to people. You find that especially in Belize City we have a lot of troubled youths, we have students that they interact with quite a great deal, and there are problems where the teachers call them in where children are fighting or major things that the teachers believe that they cannot deal with, and beside that even in visiting homes there are conflicts they come across that they need to give advice and see how best they can help. So this workshop will definitely help them to better cope with situations that they will meet."
Inspector Diane Hall, ZBLO Commander Belize City
"On a daily basis we deal with young people on a whole and sometimes we have some tough situations coming into the office and it is important for us to learn how to deal with the young people. We have been trained to deal with these type of issues but for some officers you have to have a lot of patience and without patience we won't get anything done."
Patience - a tried and tested virtue for these officers who canvass hoods, bases, and neighborhoods, and run head on into conflict daily.
Sylvestre Martinez, ZBLO Ladyville
"Like I how I attached to the Zone Beat Liaison and doing community policing it is our job and I believe that I have already been versed doing community policing and it becomes so easy after the amount of years that I have, without needing a gun."
PC Florentino Rash,
"It really doesn't have to do with a gun or a baton in order to control people and you just need to show the people that you could work with them and solve the problem."
Solving problems, a skill in which these officers should be more adept after today's talk from the NDACC's Karen Bodden
Although today's workshop was for ZBLO's officers from the Belize District there are officers countrywide.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited for the internet by Keith Swift
