_{An injured Emil Rivers}

by Charles Gladden

INDEPENDENCE, Stann Creek District, Mon. Jan. 27, 2025

Police officers shot a man from Independence Village, Stann Creek District, who is reportedly mentally challenged, and he is now hospitalized at the Western Regional Hospital in Belmopan.

24-year-old Emil Rivers went to withdraw money from a Belize Bank ATM in the village, and was reportedly approached by five police officers who attempted to apprehend him as he had a knife on him.

When Rivers began to question the officers as to their reason for his arrest, they replied that they were going to charge him solely for the knife, but later added that he was going to be charged for resisting arrest. According to Marlene Rivers, mother of Emil Rivers, the officers spoke to her son roughly, despite his condition.

“Do you know that he is not mentally 100%? Meaning he has a mental illness and cannot understand orders given to him in that manner. You have to talk to him slowly and clearly so he can conceptualize what you are trying to say. But that neva mi di happen, so he neva undastan why he di get charge fah, and why he haf to go eena dis mobile. That is why he is resisting,” she said.

Marlene Rivers said her son suffers from asthma, and when he was taken to the police station, he was stripped of his clothes, left wearing nothing but his undergarments.

However, the police have a different account of this incident. According to ACP Hilberto Romero, Regional Commander of the Belize Police Department’s Eastern Division, Emil Rivers jumped out of the mobile trunk, after being detained. Then the following day, he escaped while the cell where he was being held was being cleaned, and ran to a nearby home and equipped himself with a machete.

Warning shots were fired to defuse the situation, and when an attempt to disarm him failed, an officer then shot Rivers in the leg, after which he was taken to the Southern Regional Hospital. Marlene Rivers was unaware of this incident when a work colleague informed her.

According to Marlene Rivers, “The person said, ‘Nurse, they shot your son’. I said, ‘No, that’s not true; my son is in police custody. I just spoke to a W over the phone.’ And they said, ‘No, nurse, they shot your son and took him from the polyclinic.’ No police called me as the immediate next-of-kin, as the mother, as someone responsible for him, and told me that he got shot. My son was shot, taken to the polyclinic, with only one boxer, and transported to Dangriga to Southern Regional Hospital in that same dirty manner,” she expressed.

She said that when she met Emil in Dangriga she discovered his serious injuries along with a gunshot injury to his abdomen and upper back, and abrasions over his body. He was taken to Western Regional Hospital in Belmopan to undergo surgery to repair intestinal damage. Currently, Emil Rivers is in a hospital bed hooked up to IV tubes and a catheter.

While in Belmopan hospital, the police guard refused to allow Marlene Rivers to stay with her son and to care for him, and ultimately forced her out of the hospital.

Marlene has decided to press charges for the unfair treatment of her son.