Inmate Shot During Daring Escape Attempt at Belize Central Prison

Chaos erupted at the Belize Central Prison this morning when an inmate made a sudden and dangerous break for freedom. A thirty-year-old inmate, Nyere Parchue, decided he wasn’t waiting until September twentieth to walk free. Instead, he made a bold dash for freedom during recreation time, scaling the prison’s security fence in a desperate escape attempt. But tower guards weren’t about to let him go that easily. After several warning shots, they took aim, bringing the escape to a painful end. Parchue was hit multiple times and is now hospitalized. News Five’s Paul Lopez has the full story.

 

Paul Lopez, Reporting

Thirty-year-old Nyere Parchue is now in the hospital after an escape attempt took a violent turn at the Belize Central Prison this morning. Around 9:20 a.m., during recreation time, guards noticed Parchue wandering into a restricted area, off-limits to inmates. One of the tower guards spotted him sneaking behind a building and heading toward the tower. He shouted several warnings, ordering Parchue to stop and return to his assigned area. But Parchue kept going, and that’s when things escalated.

 

On the Phone: Virgilio Murillo, Chief Executive Officer, Kolbe Foundation

“They were about to do recreation and he took the opportunity to head towards the perimeter fence and climb it. He was ordered verbally to desist from running towards the fence. He was given a command but the refused. So when the tower guards saw he was running pass the towers and running towards the fence they started to fire warning shots. They fired about seven warning shots, I was told.”

 

The escape attempt reached a critical moment when the tower guard spotted Nyere Parchue climbing the prison fence. He had made it all the way to the top when the guard, realizing the inmate was seconds away from breaking free, fired a shot to stop him. Parchue fell hard to the ground. When guards rushed over to retrieve him, they found he had been hit, suffering gunshot wounds to the head and neck.

 

On the Phone: Virgilio Murillo

“According to the Prisons Act which governs the Belize Central Prison, one of the lawful thing that a prison officer has at his advantage is to use the weapon he is assigned to prevent a prisoner from escaping. At the end of the day prisoners do not come to prison to escape, because they can go and harm society. So we cannot afford that. We don’t cater for escapes. We will do whatever is in our power or lawful to prevent prisoners from escaping. The situation with this guy is that he was a moving target and I imagine even though you might be trying to shoot for the foot or the thigh you might end up shooting the part you don’t want to hit. And that is how it goes with a moving target, it is hard to peg it.”

 

Nyere Parchue’s troubled past may help explain his desperate escape attempt. The thirty-year-old was serving a short, three-month sentence for drug possession and property damage. But his run-ins with the law started just weeks ago. On July eighteenth, he appeared before the Magistrates Court for three traffic offenses. He pleaded guilty to two and was fined a modest one hundred and eighty dollars. But things quickly took a darker turn. In court, his own mother revealed that Parchue had threatened to kill his entire family; she said she feared for their lives. Just five days later, he was back before the magistrate, this time for punching his eight-year-old nephew in the face. He pleaded guilty again and was fined eight hundred dollars. But with unpaid fines still hanging over him, Parchue couldn’t walk free and was sent to the Belize Central Prison.

 

On the Phone: Virgillo Murillo

“According to the guards they did not see him behaving in any flight risk kind of way or any unusual way and that is why he went on his recreation like every other prisoner doing recreation at the time. If the guard felt like he was behaving quirky I am sure he would have opted to leave him in his cell. We don’t know who is escaping if the person is mental, here for murder, rape or maybe a traffic offense. In this particular case this guy is here serving a sentence for three months for possession of a controlled drug and for damage to property.”

 

Tonight, Parchue remains hospitalized in a stable condition.

 

On the Phone: Virgillo Murillo

“The process is that he is going to stay at the hospital until the authorities at the hospital discharge him and then he will come back into the care of the prison where we can care for him at our medical center. But like I said earlier, he is in a stable condition, that is what I was told.”

 

Parchue’s family was made aware of the situation. News Five understands that his mother visited him at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. He was scheduled for early release on August thirty-first. Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.