BELIZE CITY, Mon. Sept. 3, 2018– It was a murderous weekend in Belize City as we entered the month of September. Three of the murders occurred on Friday, August 31, and three on September 1. Five of them involved the use of firearms.
The first murder happened around 1:45 p.m. on Friday. Shakeedi Baizar, 23, had just left Matron Roberts Clinic and was walking through a nearby alley when a man approached him and fired several shots.
Baizar was being treated in the Matron Roberts Clinic when he succumbed to his injuries. His death is said to be gang-related and caused at least one of the other deaths that occurred over the weekend, police said.
About 6 hours later, at 8 p.m., police visited Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, where they saw the body of Francis Pollard, 23, a welder of Arlington Drive. The body had multiple gunshot wounds on it.
At around 7:45 p.m., Pollard was walking on Doris Brooks Street when, as he was entering a yard, a man came up to him and fired several shots at him, fatally wounding him.
About three and a half hours after this, at 11:30 p.m., Daniel Lopez, 25, a Chon Saan delivery man of Antelope Street, was shot several times as well, and his body was found motionless when the police arrived on the scene.
Early investigations reveal that Lopez was delivering food at the corner of George and Basra Street when a man approached him and shot him. The reason is unknown.
Less than 24 hours later, at around 12:45 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, police responded to a report at the Bayview Guest House on Baymen Avenue. Upon checking room #4, they observed the body of Allen Portillo, 40, a security guard of Independence Village. Police reports say that he was found with both hands and feet tied, and he had been strangled.
Portillo had left Independence around 10 a.m. on Friday and booked a room at the guest house in Belize City at 12:46 p.m. that same day.
Around 11 a.m. when a housekeeper went to clean the room, she discovered Portillo’s body, covered with a white sheet. Police say he died due to manual strangulation.
Less than 10 hours later, at 8:35 p.m. on Saturday night, Leroy Meighan, 22, a laborer of Pelican Street, was shot multiple times.
Reports are that Meighan was walking on Pelican Street on his way home when a man emerged from a bushy area and fired several shots at him. He succumbed to his injuries at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
Twenty minutes later, at 8:55 p.m., police responded to a report about an incident at the Port Loyola Community Pre-School and, when they arrived, they found a lifeless body lying face-down on the verandah of the preschool. Later, police identified the deceased person as security guard Orson Stephens, 48.
The early investigations reveal that Stephens was on the verandah when a man hopped over the fence and shot him.
These stories appear in this issue of the Amandala.