Gang Feud Escalates in Belize City

There is a war between factions in Belize City that led to an attempt on a man’s life last night and several children escaping gunfire. Thirty-three-year-old Rufus Castillo was on the veranda of his Holy Emmanuel Street home when, around 8:15, he spotted two armed men sneaking into his yard. Castillo began hurling glass bottles at the men before they opened fire at him. Fortunately, Castillo was unscathed, but the men then retreated behind another house in the same yard and released a barrage of shots. Police say the assailants let off as many as nine shots before they escaped on foot toward M and M Street. There have been several shootings in the area in the past few months and Commissioner of Police Chester Williams says they stem from an internal feud gang feud. Williams says that police have tried mediation with the warring factions, but he is tired of talking.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “The intended target was there along with a number of children but thankfully none of them were injured during the incident. I was in the area this morning and I took with me the SPU and the GI3 and I had given them specific instructions in terms of what I want to see get done in the area to be able to alleviate these frequent incidents of shooting. You will recall that about two to three weeks ago there was a shooting in that same general area and then about a week prior there was another shooting and then we had a week prior the murder of the guy Jordan Burns. So obviously there is intense rivalry between the two fractions of BLC. As you know they have been split into two and so the rivalry between them continues but I want to assure the residents of the Martins area and in particular those in the Police Street and Holy Emmanuel area that the police will be doing what we must do to keep the area safe. We are monitoring very closely. We’re trying to apply other measures at this time and if we see that what we’re doing fails then we go to the more drastic measure which you all know what that means. The Leadership Intervention Unit has done a number of intervention with the two rivaling groups. I myself partook in one of those interventions and both parties had promised that they’re going to put aside their personal differences and try to coexist in the same area but seemingly the interventions are not working. They come to these sessions and made promises and when they leave the promises are broken so that means that we are no longer going to speak to them in terms of trying to get them to cooperate. I can tell you that they have been suspended from the LIU program because some of them were members of LIU and those persons concerned have been suspended from LIU program at this time until we can get a grip of the situation.”

In July, the Ministry of Home Affairs instituted a partial state of emergency in Belize City, to address a similar spike in violent crime in targeted areas.