Police Abuse Ruled Out in Death of 26-Year-Old Belmopan Detainee

Authorities have ruled out police abuse in the death of 26-year-old Daniel Cal whose family claimed he was beaten while in custody. Last week, Cal was caught with a stolen motorcycle and detained at the Belmopan Police Station. However, before he could have been charged, he began to suffer seizures and was taken by police to the Western Regional Hospital. He was discharged two days later and taken back into custody, but after being released he was hospitalized again. He later passed away, and his family believed it was the result of Cal being beaten by police. Since then, police have worked with the National Forensic Science Service to expedite Cal’s post-mortem and concluded that he died from respiratory issues brought on by alcoholism. According to Commissioner of Police Chester Williams, additional examinations were done to rule out police abuse. Today, he explained that the department ensured Cal’s family was a part of the process.  

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “The National Forensic Service had requested that an X-ray be performed on the body to be able to ascertain whether or not there were signs of him having been physically abused by the police. And so we had taken the body to Orange Walk Town on Sunday night for the X-ray to be done. And again, the family were notified of this as well, because we made sure that whenever anything concerning the body is done that the families were notified so that they don’t think that we’re trying to do anything to cover up. And the result of that X-ray revealed that there was no sign of violence on the body. Secondly, the post-mortem examination was conducted yesterday and the result of the post-mortem revealed that he died from acute respiratory distress due to Alcoholism I think cirrhosis of the liver. And likewise, the post mortem did not reveal anything to the effect that Mr. Cal was physically abused by anybody. Now the thing here is that Mr. Cal prior to coming into custody of the police did have a long medical history. He had been in and out of hospital I believe due to the illness that he was suffering from. And I think this is known by the family of Mr.Cal. We have viewed the surveillance footage from the station and that too did not show anything to the effect that police had done him anything wrong. And so at this time we can say with some degree of certainty that Mr. Cal’s death was not caused by the police. It just so happened that he took to his worst while he was in police custody and he was in police custody for legitimate reasons, he was accused of committing a crime, he was charged for that crime and he was in police because like any other person who would have been charged and I must say that the police in Belmopan had informed Mr. Cal’s family members of his illnesses whilst he was in the cell block detained and the police had facilitated him going to the hospital on one occasion prior to the second occasion when he went and subsequently died. So it shows that the police were responsive to his needs.” 

And while police abuse has been ruled out in Cal’s death, today, Prime Minister Briceno spoke on the need to continue reforming the police department despite much work being done to improve its image. 

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “This issue what we mentioned it’s very unfortunate what happened and quite likely you know in hindsight you have 20/20 vision and obviously somebody should have called the family from early on to say hey something is wrong with Mr. Cal. But I’m told that they have taken out the report to show that whilst he may show some bruises he died from well it seems that he was an alcoholic and and other medical issues and not necessarily from police brutality but one hit to a prisoner is one too much and it should not be tolerated.”

Cal’s family has indicated that they will seek legal action against the department despite the medical evidence provided by the department.