32.8 C
Belize City
Thursday, March 28, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

Asinine gun laws put family of 5 in prison

HeadlineAsinine gun laws put family of 5 in prison

Woman with young baby also imprisoned; “I wish I coulda mi help unno!” magistrate tells family

Gun violence claimed the life of Myron Smith, 17, on Monday, June 30, but one week after his family laid him to rest, unlicensed firearm and ammunition charges under the harsh amendments to the Firearms Act, against which there are at least two constitutional challenges before the Supreme Court, led to another tragedy for Myron Smith’s family of 8159 Giles Street, in Lake Independence.

Relatives of the Smith family began arriving at the Magistrate’s Court around 2:00 p.m. today, Tuesday, to await the arrival of their relatives who would be brought before a Magistrate to be arraigned on two firearms charges.

Almost three hours later, the seven persons who police accused of keeping an unlicensed firearm and unlicensed ammunition – a .9mm pistol and thirteen .9mm rounds – were escorted into the courtroom of Senior Magistrate Sharon Frazer.

Alrick Smith, 52, a construction worker, and his common-law wife, Sandra Casey, 47, a domestic – the father and mother of the late Myron Smith – and their other children, Leon Smith, 19, and Tamika Smith, 20, were charged, along with Ishaida Brooks, Alrick’s niece, and two boys, ages 16 and 17, who are not related to the Smiths.

The Smith family is being represented by Legal Aid attorneys Michelle Trapp-Zuniga and Baja Shoman. The two minors are unrepresented, but one of their mothers appeared in the courtroom.

Six of the seven pleaded not guilty, while the 17-year-old pleaded guilty to the two offenses.

Magistrate Frazer, however, asked him, if he knew to what he was pleading guilty.

Under the most recent amendment to the Firearms act, a conviction carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 5 years.

The boy said that he knew and was pleading guilty because he didn’t want the others to go to jail.

Frazer informed him that there was nothing she could do: “Whether or not you plead guilty, all a unno gwine da jail! I wish I coulda mi help unno!”

After Frazer told them that she would not be able to offer them bail for another three months, the boy decided to change his guilty plea.

Frazer told them that she sympathized with them over the death of their loved one, but there was nothing that she could do to prevent them from being remanded to prison.

Tears began to flow from the eyes of Ishaida Brooks, as she told the court, “I have a young baby.”

Leon Smith, who does not reside at his parents’ home, told the court that “there were a lot of people in the yard, but the police picked on me.”

His sister began sobbing, as Frazer explained to them that they would be held on remand at the Central Prison for at least two weeks, “unless the DPP gives a waiver, but your attorneys know what to do.”

They were remanded to prison until their next court date on August 21.

Outside the courtroom, the mood was tense. As the remanded persons were being led back to the court’s holding cell, supporting family members, in apparent frustration, shouted curse words at court reporters and television cameramen for documenting their grief-stricken loved ones.

According to police, on Monday, July 7, around 5:25 p.m., one of their mobile units was on patrol in the area when they saw a person running up the stairs of a wooden house.

Police, however, failed to indicate whether the individual whom they saw running, was running away from them.

They also did not mention whether they were pursuing this person because they suspected that he was armed with a handgun.

Nonetheless, they followed him straight into the home of the grieving Smith family. The police’s narrative is sketchy at best. They followed or chased the person who was running into the Smiths’ home and decided to conduct the search that turned up the loaded .9mm, after they found the person they pursued hiding inside the bathroom.

Did the police try to find out if he resided at the house before arresting the members of the Smith family, who had just returned from the cemetery?

The Smith family maintains that there was no gun in their home and that the gun was brought there by the young man whom the police was chasing.

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International