Five men lost their lives in separate shooting incidents that took place over this past weekend, but one shooting victim is lucky to be alive today after he also came under fire while riding on a street in southside Belize City in broad daylight on Saturday.
Police said that they visited the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital this past Saturday, April 12, where they observed Glenford Alvarez, 21, of a Supal Street address, with an apparent gunshot wound on the left foot.
Investigators then found out that at about 10:45 that morning, Alvarez was riding a bicycle on Dolphin Street in front of Wesley Upper School when he was approached from behind by a dark-complexioned male person riding a beach cruiser bicycle who pointed what appeared to be a pistol in his direction and fired several shots at him, causing his injury.
Officer in Charge of Precinct 1, Superintendent Alden Dawson, commented on the shooting today and told us that Alvarez was riding in the direction of Racoon Street heading towards North Creek when the gunman accosted him with what appeared to be a chrome 9 millimeter pistol and shot his victim in the ankle, leaving him hospitalized.
“So far, we have managed to detain a suspect who is in custody at this time, and we are going through some interviews based on what we have learned from our investigations”, Dawson informed.
While there is speculation that the shooting was a result of an ongoing rivalry between feuding gangs in the area, Dawson said that the police can’t readily confirm that possibility until after more information on the background of the main suspect is gathered and investigated.
“Well, because we do not really have much information about the person in custody, we can’t say if it is gang-related, but we know for a fact that there is an issue between the George Street and the Supal Street people”, Dawson explained.
In the meanwhile, police are working on establishing a motive for this latest case of attempted murder, and according to Dawson, measures are being put in place to deter violent crime within his jurisdiction.
Dawson told us, “We’re always in discussion and from time to time we change our mode of operations, but we continue to go back to the drawing board and we are always planning. For the Easter, we will have several operations in place and we will start as early as 1:00 p.m. today.”