And you may have noticed that the usually combustible commissioner seemed slightly low energy yesterday, or at least a little world-weary.
To be sure, he has a super stressful job - but could it be that he's also ready to hang it up as the Top Cop?
7News has been reliably informed that at the weekly Commanders' meeting yesterday, Williams told all the senior officers that he would be retiring on December 1st 2023, and that he has already told the government as much.
But, today his Minister said the old Chester was just pulling everyone's leg:
Kareem Musa, Area Rep, Caribbean Shores
"I got that question from one of your colleagues this morning and it appears that the commissioner may have started that rumor but it was in a joking fashion so when I messaged him this morning he said it's just a joke that he was playing. He hasn't filed for early retirement or anything like that but so far that's just a rumor so we aren't at stage of selecting a replacement but you can rest assured that the media will be the first to know whenever it is that the commissioner of police does decide to retire and when we do select our replacement."
"There always has to be a succession plan within any organization and particularly within the Belize police department that is something that myself, the prime minister and cabinet we have had discussions regarding that type of succession plan as you know we currently have three deputy's that are in place, deputy Guzman, deputy Rosado and deputy Jones so we do have very competent individuals who can take over the reigns whenever that time does arise and so I don't like to engage in that type of speculation and discussion when in fact no such decision has been made but you can rest assured that we do have competent individuals, professional police officers who can take over the helm whenever that time arises."
And while Minister Musa brushed it off, that's not the vibe that we got at all coming out of that commanders meeting. In fact when word reached the Compol that his notice of retirement had been leaked - he sent an angry voice note to one of the police chat groups this morning. That was also leaked to our newsroom:
Voice of: Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"It is such a shame that we have a conference with senior command and nothing said in there can be kept confidential. But yet when the lower ranks leak information, act ill-discipline, we want to punish them."
"What a disgrace. Some of you people really need to be ashamed of yourselves, honestly."
We'll keep following the drama of Chester's long farewell.
