Security Ministry Meets Police After 3 Killings in 24 Hours  

The Ministry of National Security says gang rivalries and turf wars are at the root of the violence in Belize City, where three people were killed in about twenty-four hours. CEO Francis Usher told News 5 the Ministry met with police leaders this past Saturday to talk about changes in strategy. Usher said the Ministry and police are working as a team, and that the answer has to involve more than the police alone.

 

Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of National Security

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and that’s fine. I have big broad shoulders to shoulder that burden. So we had three murders between Friday and the wee hours of Saturday morning. It’s important to take stock of, okay, what is happening first of all? What is the root cause of this problem? And the root cause, without getting into too much detail, there are some rivalries between gangs, turf wars, etc. So we have to analyze what is the root cause of that. And I’ll be the first to say the police department cannot be the only department in the crime prevention strategy. It’s a whole of society approach. It’s a whole of government approach. Various ministries have to work together. There has to be a socioeconomic factor to this. And that’s something that we are advocating for, not only as a department, but as a government on the whole. We have to all work together in these crime prevention strategies. We have to develop as a society and as a people. But you also have to address the immediate need. And there were issues that needed to be addressed on Friday. We met on Saturday. So everything happened Friday. We met on Saturday. We had open and frank discussions with the commissioner and his entire operations team and his intelligence team. They briefed on potential minor shifts in strategy that could help to alleviate some of these things that were happening. But we discussed it as a team. There’s no linchpin. There’s no one person or two people that are the main people in national security. We work together as a team. We bounce ideas off each other. And we leave the room with a united front on what needs to get done. And then we go out and get it done.”

 

Usher did not say which gang groups are warring.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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