William Dawson to be honored by the Belize Police Department

 Since yesterday, the outpour of sorrow has continued for the family of William Dawson. Dawson was the chairman of the Leadership Intervention Unit and he died yesterday after being ill. The forty-three-year-old was a key figure in the government’s multi-sectorial approach to crime which is believed to lead to a lull in gang violence. Yesterday, the Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, was asked if Dawson’s absence will result in a degradation of the relationship between the young men, who are a part of the LIU’s program, and the police.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “We must have contingency plan and I would want to say to the young men who were a part of the work that William did that to look at his passing as a reflection to themselves in terms of life is short and we’re here today and tomorrow we may be gone and to live a life that is surrounded by hostility, surrounded by fear, surrounded by animosity and hate is not going to get them anywhere. We must try to live a full life and a full life means that you enjoy all the amenities of life and don’t see yourselves living in an environment where you’re confined to one square mile of this very beautiful country that we call Belize. We must be able to soar like an eagle, move around how we want and William’s work was towards achieving that and he achieved a lot in so doing. So let them look at William passing as that symbol that can bring them together and I’m sure that many of them are going to attend his funeral and they will pay their respect to him because they did love him, they know the work that he did for them and as much as some of these young men at times behave like monsters they do have that sense of reasonableness at times that they can see things and do appreciate certain things that are done for them. So we look forward to seeing them at the funeral.”

The ComPol added that to honour Dawson’s legacy the department will be renaming its annual basketball tournament, which brings together gang members from the various factions, to the Sprite William Dawson Peace Cup.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: It didn’t matter to him which area he had to go into he was always willing and like you said he did this without even thinking about his own safety or how they would look at him. He moved like myself without a weapon again because he has that confidence in what he did. I always believe that if you are a peace maker you don’t need to have a gun to show any sign of force your personality alone and the manner in which you approach situations should be your weapon and God will protect you that’s my honest belief and I said to Douglas this morning, Douglas Hyde who works PR in my office, I said to him you know we have to have something in honor of William something that we can remember him by and so the basketball tournament we have annually that is currently named the Sprite Peace Cup we’ll now change the name from what it is to William Dawson Sprite Peace Cup so it is going to be now in honor of William and I think that there are many other things that we can do in honor.”