No Murder Charges Yet in Brandon Baptist’s Death as Suspect Claims Self-Defense

The man believed to be responsible for the shooting death of the gang leader Brandon Baptist is yet to face any murder charges. On Tuesday, 29-year-old Shevaughn Gotoy was arraigned on multiple charges in the Belize City Magistrates’ Court. However, none of the charges were related to Baptist’s fatal shooting, and that’s because Gotoy claims he acted in self-defense. A day after the shooting, Gotoy handed himself into police and gave investigators his licensed firearm that was used in the Friday night incident. Gotoy told police he acted in fear for his life and only pulled his weapon after Baptist brandished a firearm. Today, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams provided an update on the police’s investigation and explained that the file is now with the Director of Public Prosecutions. 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “The DPP is trying to see if there is anything to negate that self defense component and so there is a need for us to try to see if we can locate more witnesses who will be able to give account and again that is hard. Nobody wants to speak to the police on that issue. We did manage to get some statements but those are not sufficient to negate the self defense that is being raised by the accused shooter and his associates. So we will wait and see how it goes from there. From what we gathered, even from the organizers, the police did in fact were searching people who went into the game but as I said before the perimeter of the stadium is extremely weak. There are some areas that have no fence and even the fenced area has space in-between where you can just throw anything in the stadium and get it when you get in there. So I think what we need to do is find a more secure location next time for games like these. I personally even when we have our basketball and football tournaments through LIU my instructions is always that we do not have these games go into the night. We try to have them done before night sets in. Again these are things that we have to look at with the other organizations that are having these games to make sure that not just having adequate security but make sure it is done during the day time and not into night time because when night sets in it makes it more difficult for law enforcement.”

Williams noted that the police have suspended mediation efforts between the feuding factions involved in the shooting.