BELIZE CITY, Wed. Aug. 4, 2021– On Sunday, August 1, two young men were killed in shootings on Kraal Road in a sequence of events that bore some striking similarities to another shooting that occurred on Sunday, July 25, which also claimed the lives of two men. (In both incidents, one of the two dead men was reportedly the gunman who caused the other’s death.) Reports are that 24-year-old Matthew Gutierrez was allegedly murdered in cold blood on Sunday morning on Kraal Road by a 16-year-old minor identified as Shamar Nicolas.
Moments after executing his deadly mission, Nicolas was intercepted by police who were stationed at the corner of Kraal Road, and he reportedly fired shots at the officers. Police in the area then fired back at the young assailant, fatally injuring him. A photo uploaded to social media shows police hovering over Nicolas’ motionless body, next to which lay a blue hat, a bicycle and a handgun on the ground. Nicolas was transported to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH), where he was pronounced dead by 9:05 that morning.
His victim, 24-year-old Gutierrez, who was also transported to the KHMH, died a short while after, at about 9:15 a.m. Police are classifying their handling of the deaths of Gutierrez and Nicolas as murder and loss of life investigations respectively.
The Police Department’s communications director, Fitzroy Yearwood, told local reporters that the fatal shooting of the minor by the officers on duty has prompted an internal police investigation and that the crime scene was processed in the same way that a typical civilian murder would have been.
A recent sequence of shootings in the Kraal Road area has resulted in the loss of 4 lives — all young black men from the general area. According to police, members of certain groups in the area refuse to desist from their ongoing conflict.
“We realize that rival groups in that area refuse, I must say refuse, to desist; this is the second time that a shooter that has gone on a mission on that street has completed his mission but failed to return to base,” remarked ASP Yearwood.
He added, “Yes, Shamar Nicolas has had run-ins with the police. It is not a secret. But a brazen act so early on a Sunday morning, and I’m certain that if you drive through Belize City on any given day, you would see that we have put back our permanent checkpoint in that area.”
Nicolas’ parents have expressed to local media their grief over the loss of his life. His father believes that, unlike what the police have indicated, his son may have been killed and the gun placed next to him as a staged cover-up to justify the shooting.
On Sunday, July 25, another gunman was killed minutes after the murder of his victim. Matthew Guy was killed while attempting to escape after fatally shooting Gary Young on Kraal Road.
Police said that they will forward a file to the Director of Public Prosecution after an investigation is carried out to determine if any action can be brought against the officer who shot Nicolas.