by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Dec. 14, 2023

The confirmation of 82-year-old William Watson’s death being a homicide instead of him meeting his demise in a house fire, added one more to the murder numbers for the year, taking it to 80.

“This year is a record-breaking year for us so far. We are making great strides, but we certainly are not yet where we want to be,” said Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams.

As ComPol Williams said, it is a record-breaking year when it comes to the murder numbers. Looking at the data for the last decade, the numbers have been extremely high for the country, consistently over a hundred.

Within the decade, 2012 had the most bloodshed with 145 murders; 143 murders were recorded in 2018, and the year before it was 142. The years with the least bloodshed in the decade were 2013 with 99, and 2020 with 102.

The last time ComPol Williams referred to the yearly numbers was in October of this year, when he noted that murders were down by 22 %, and overall major crime was down by 2%. The number of murders at that time was 68, considerably lower than the 86 murders at the same time last year in October.

So, will the number of murders for 2023 make it the least deadly year that the country has seen within the past decade? With little over two weeks remaining in the year, ComPol Williams is confident that this year will continue to be less violent than previous years.

“I do take a serious look at the murder count, and I always try my best to preserve life. Whenever we have any murders or shootings in the city, I always find myself in Belize City on the ground, trying to see what I can do along with my team to mitigate any possible retaliation, and I think that we have been doing well,” said ComPol Williams.

“Saving lives for us is a number one priority, and we’re going to do our best for the rest of the year to make sure that we keep the numbers well below the figures we have seen over the past 13 years. I think we can achieve it,” he added.