AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums About Belize Nation Crime Control Police Conduct Sweep of San Pedro Town

An intense sweep of San Pedro Town has resulted in multiple arrests for criminal offenses ranging from drug trafficking and firearm possession to attempted murder. The crackdown led to the detention of twenty-one-year-old Deshawn Goff, who has since been charged for the Attempted Murder of thirteen-year-old Meredith Escalante. The minor was shot to the left side of the chest inside her home at the Espat Apartments on February eleventh while preparing for supper. Goff has additionally been charged with Dangerous Harm and Use of Deadly Means of Harm. It is widely believed that the intended target of that shooting was Rolando Espat Senior, who resides in an apartment next door. While no further connection has been established, Espat's single-room abode came under attack almost two weeks later when gunshots rang out in the early hours of February twenty-fourth. His wife and two-year-old son were both injured during the incident; the toddler perishing while receiving medical attention at the polyclinic. To date that case remains open.

10 Charged for Firearm Offences in San Pedro

Elsewhere during the recent police offensive, a raid on the residence of another notorious San Pedrano family yielded an unlicensed firearm and eight rounds of matching ammunition.  Fifty-one-year-old Peter Moses Hernandez, also known as Campos, and nine others, all of a San Juan Area address, have been arrested and charged jointly for the offenses of kept firearm without a gun license and kept ammunition without a gun license.  Arraigned were twenty-six-year-old Marciana Campos, twenty-three-year-old Teresita Cordova, forty-eight-year-old Guadalupe Gonzalez, forty-two-year-old Victor Vasquez, fifty-two-year-old John Arana, thirty-year-old Michael Edwards, twenty-seven-year-old Juan Gomez, Laura Trapp and twenty-five-year-old Pedro Campos.  Today, the group was brought to Belize City via a one-thirty Caye Caulker Water Taxi that arrived just before three p.m. at the terminal on North Front Street. They were escorted by GSU officers into a police van and several GSU pickup trucks and taken to the Central Prison in Hattieville. Their arraignment succeeded a search of their home during ongoing drug operations by GSU officers and San Pedro Police on the island. A point twenty-two Taurus brand pistol, along with a cartridge containing eight rounds of Fiocchi brand ammunition were confiscated at the house.  Also found was a small box containing fifteen live rounds of Fiocchi brand ammo.

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San Pedro was on the list! Very disappointing.....hopefully this will be taken seriously, and "clean-up" will continue

oh God, the "My boys wouldn't hurt a fly" crowd are out in force and with attorneys like Mr. Salgado to protect them the gig will soon be up for Ambergris Caye as the island becomes more infested with thieves, drugs and murderers.

Don't expect the bad guys to be happy about the Police spoiling there reign over the island and now they will try every trick in the book to get out of the charges.

If the Police were smart they would be video taping all the raids and doing the searches etc BY THE BOOK backed up with video evidence of correct Police procedures being followed at every step.

Most cases are thrown out because Police procedure was not followed and the lawyers will jump right on that so the Police have to do their job professionally and with transparency and that can easily be done by having a videographer follow them on raids

And no one has the slightest concern over the allegations that the gun was planted and people that have not been found guilty of any crime are imprisoned. Our constitution is toilet paper. Wake up.
The gun controversy is easy one. Check the fingerprints on the gun. Our magar forensics can do that. The police are proven liars and criminals unlike those they accuse. How anyone in their right mind can think that conducting war on weed will help the crime situation is difficult to understand. Please explain.

I don't think a little weed seems to be the issue. It's all about drug dealers and their territory. You wouldn't see the hardline tactics if drug dealers weren't trying to protect their turf by firing shots through walls and windows.

Thank you for that point tahunt... If the new kid on the block can make a comment... There is no such thing as perfection:: Ferguson is a good example... Nothing is black and white except film. It's really simple; which side of the fence do you fall on. Do you want more civil rights for all or less civil rights for all and more protection for most. When it swings too far in either direction, there is a correction.

Right now there is a nasty crime problem on our Island.

Nasty is putting it lightly. I have worked for an airline for 25 years and it has given me the fortune of being able to travel frequently. So I have traveled to San Pedro more than a dozen times and I love the island and the people whom I have met there. It just seems over the last 2 years or so crime is out of control. Crime being burglaries, stabbings, murder, buried bodies, and I will also include dishonest police and their shake downs. There were more murders there last year than the town I live in which is a suburb of Dallas with 300,000 people. Something has to give. The court system is a failure because no one is ever convicted. I believe police are understaffed but its hard to argue for more troops when every time I have driven by the police station everyone is out front sitting on the vehicles watching traffic go by. These guys should be on routine patrols just as every city's police do. If they are serious about fixing the crime problem the police need to look at themselves and their own operation. I just hope they make some headway soon before tourism is affected. If tourism numbers drop I would bet my last dollar burglaries and robberies will rise.

"..... Inside the hall inside a child's schoolbag was found a point two-two weapon along with ammunition, where members of the family saw the Police planting it there. These people were taken before the Magistrate on Wednesday. A person that was inside plead guilty to the offence as charged. He took responsibility for it."

So they saw the police "plant" the weapon and then one of them took responsibility for it? Seems odd.....

Yes, Yes, Mike Campbell, legalize it all, end the war on drugs, the drug dealers are all innocent, let them do their stuff, the police are all liars and crooks. OK, now that you've got that off your chest what do you, as a person who once ran for office and the trust of the people in San Pedro, propose as an urgent and immediate solution to the five murders and multiple gun injuries and 100's of robberies, thefts and burglaries we've already seen in 2015?