The family of Allyson Major, Jr. feels betrayed by our justice system, after police officer Kent Martinez was freed of a charge of manslaughter by negligence brought against him for the shooting death of their family member three years ago. According to reports, the police, suspecting that Major had marijuana in his possession, set after him. The reports say that Major fled from them in a vehicle, and at the Belize City Swing Bridge the pursuing police caught up with him, fired at him from their vehicle, and one of their bullets hit him in his head, shattering his skull and the lives of his family and friends.
In a country that is jaded by over two decades of escalating violence, the shooting of Mr. Major provoked extreme outrage. Debilitating poverty coupled with unenlightened drug laws have led to the growth of gangs armed with the most deadly weapons, and in the battle to protect turf the “soldiers” die at a rate that exceeds what is seen in the bloodiest wars almost anywhere in the world. The experts can probably give all the reasons why we are woefully inadequate at resolving the regular conflicts that flare up during normal human interaction, but since justice disappeared from the land, since the likelihood of an acquittal in a murder case is now the inverse of what it was prior to independence, increasingly we settle our disputes with guns and edged weapons.
In a country numbed by almost daily reports of gunshot victims, the Major case struck a nerve. He died because the police suspected he had some marijuana and set after him, and when they caught up with him, someone put a bullet in his head. If the individual who shot and killed an unarmed, unaggressive Allyson Major, Jr., is indeed a police officer, then his life was taken by a man carrying a licensed weapon for the single purpose of protecting the lives and properties of his brothers and sisters.
It’s no news in Belize, an alleged killer being acquitted by a jury in a court in Belize. In this case the jury was reportedly instructed by the judge to accept a submission by Mr. Martinez’s attorney that he had no case to answer. According to reports, the prosecution couldn’t prove that the bullet that broke Mr. Major’s cranium and splattered his brain had been fired from a gun in Martinez’s hand. There were a number of police officers in pursuit of Major, and civilians in the vicinity, at the time of the incident. The court says the man who stood in the docks last week had no case to answer. Many say that if he didn’t do it, as the court said, there is a great likelihood that he knows who did.
There is tremendous hurt in the society over the outcome of the case, and the minister in charge of the police has also expressed pain. The prosecution went for the lowest charge, manslaughter by negligence, but it is hard to get a guilty verdict against an on-duty police officer. As it is in the US, a country that has become notorious worldwide for homicidal officers, mainly white officers who prey on non-white civilians, cases against the police usually end in a not guilty verdict.
The outrage is mainly over the acquittal, but we must not lose our focus on why Mr. Major was shot. The reports say the police believed he had marijuana in his possession. In a few weeks or months, Belizeans will be voting in a referendum on a not-yet-worded question that will be related to the status of marijuana in Belize. There are a number of related issues, but on the substance itself, some people in Belize, some say overzealous persons, have damned it as a corrupter of society. Putting the facts over the propaganda, in 2020 the WHO reclassified marijuana, moving it from the category of most dangerous drugs, to less dangerous.
Smoking or handling marijuana is synonymous with being a bad person in some segments of our society. There’s no dearth of cynics, calloused people who say that people pop up to say good things about anyone who is murdered, regardless of the person’s character. The fact is, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, so Mr. Major must have had his share of sins too. But many upstanding Belizeans vouch for this brother, say he was a good man, and while the court has not determined who killed him, and maybe that will reside forever with the guilty party and those who saw what happened, how more senseless and tragic can it get than for one to lose their life because they might have been handling weed.
There are many questions that we must move posthaste to answer if we love our country and want to make a better future for our children and youth. There are questions to be asked of our laws and justice system. Outside of the court and the laws on the books, we need to ask questions about the quantity and quality of training and vetting an officer gets before he is issued a gun. An officer might not have killed Mr. Major, but the police have been involved in too many of these kinds of incidents. There is no right to bear arms in Belize. If you want a gun, you have to prove to the Police Department that you have the need, and the responsibility, to be a gun owner. Guns are not toys. A gun in the hands of the wrong person can cause great harm.
The Police Department needs to be held accountable for the training of its officers, and for issuing guns to officers who don’t have the judgment and composure to carry one. It is a common and feeble defense of the Police Department that the public can’t expect police officers to be of better character than the people in the society they come from. It is very unflattering of our people, and a cop out, an attempt by the Police Department to pass on or share the blame when officers act criminally.
Belize has more than enough good men and women to staff the department, or who are moldable, able to be transformed to a level where they bring honor to the khaki, navy blue and green. That uniform must mean something. It must mean that those who wear it are of excellent character. The Police Department must look within itself, instead of finding excuses without.
The Police Department needs to explain to the society WHY guns are given to officers who err so terribly. There are too many tragedies in this case, the worst of them the unjust death of Mr. Major. There’s the burden on someone’s mind of committing the world’s worst crime and the unbearable emotional and financial pain they have brought to the man’s family. All of that was caused by a terrible failure of the system.