BELIZE CITY, Mon. Mar. 14, 2022– Two viral videos of a five-year-old boy being coaxed into drinking what appears to be rum have resulted in the boy being taken away from his mother by Child Protective Services. When the videos surfaced online last week, both the Police Department and the Department of Human Services had asked for the public’s assistance in locating the boy as well as his caretakers. In one of the videos, the boy can be seen sitting on a bicycle while the male person filming the video encourages him to take a shot from a “Badman” bottle which contained a clear liquid. A woman’s voice can also be heard telling the boy, “yuh have to tek a shot”. In another video, the man behind the camera gives the boy a cup of what appears to be liquor and tells him to take a shot after instructing him to shout expletives and to pledge support for a local gang. According to the boy’s mother, who subsequently spoke with local media, the man who filmed the video is the boy’s older cousin.

“He was at home with his father,” she said, and she explained to local reporters that at some point, some of the boy’s cousins came by and took him to “hang out” with them. The mother, who was at work during the incident, only found out about the videos after they had already made their way onto social media. Shortly after that, personnel from Child Protective Services came by and took her son away.

“We done give up the persons’ name already. We done suspect da who do it,” said the mother, who also said that when she saw the video, she couldn’t believe what they were doing to her child.

In response to the videos, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams issued a statement, calling the act an outright case of child abuse.

“This clearly shows that some of us have certainly lost their sense of humanity, caring, and nurturing of our children,” wrote the Police Commissioner on Facebook. He went on to request that anyone who knows the child or his parents contact him directly. Since then, the boy’s parents have turned over the names of the relatives whose voices were heard in the videos to the police.