The police department is under pressure tonight after a police officer shot a man in the face last night and then today a young man died in custody.
We headline tonight's news with the death in custody. 32 year old Miguel Martinez died in the holding cell at the San Pedro Police station early this morning.
The San Pedrito resident had been picked up for disorderly conduct at a resort 5 this morning, and police put him in the cell.
Police say he was making noise in the cell, and when he quieted down they went to check on him, and he was dead.
According to the San Pedro Sun though, they claim he was taken into custody from earlier in the morning and that he was found dead at 5:00 am. The son quotes his Stepfather, Emmanuel Diego, he was detained for walking with a machete in hand when a local resort complained that he was on the beach giving trouble. The security from the hotel handcuffed him and handed him over to the police around 1 in the morning.
A postmortem has not confirmed the cause of death, but The Sun reports that Martinez was found dead, lying on his back with a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. His family says he had no medical issues and was seen in good health as recently as yesterday morning.
The Sun reports that police are questioning cellmates to determine if any violence was done to him.
Of course, the only concern is that it is the police investigating the police, and this becomes the third death reported in a holding cell at either San Pedro or Caye Caulker in the last nine years...
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