Child Awaits Surgery After Shooting in Belize City

A two-year-old child is in hospital, and one man is dead after a shooting in Majestic Alley in Belize City on Wednesday night.

Police say 28-year-old Dane Gillette and others were socialising outside an apartment when a gunman opened fire. Gillette was fatally wounded. Two other men, 26-year-old Antuan Rivero and 28-year-old Francis Nolberto, were also injured. The child, who was sitting with his aunt, was hit once in the back.

The child’s mother told News 5 that he is in stable condition and will undergo surgery. She said doctors found no serious internal damage, although the bullet remains lodged in his body until the procedure.

“We always hang out there in front of our house and they came all the way in front of our house and I don’t like that. My baby innocent and that have nothing to do with my baby,” she added.

The apartment door remains riddled with bullet holes. A cousin of the child said, “We are very hurt right now to know that a 2-year-old baby got caught up in this kind of violence, and to say they are in front of their house and they come shoot,” the cousin said.

Residents say Gillette was not living there but was treated as family. He had previously been acquitted of a 2021 murder due to insufficient evidence.

Police have not yet named a suspect.