Email

Print

We visited the area today and found angry resentment for police - in a place that death has visited far too often:..

Jules Vasquez reporting
18 year old Kendale Tulu Flowers lived here at the corner of Caesar Ridge and Fabers Road - in the public housing known as the Long Barracks.

His two brothers, Meldrick and Peter " Jambwai"- also both lived here - and they were killed in 2007 and 2012, respectively - both victims of gang warfare and gun violence.

They were the three sons of Shelmadine "Shemmy" Middleton - and all are now dead.

Shelmadine "Shemmy" Middleton
"Only I am left for them to kill. I don't have any more sons. They killed my three sons."

The other two were killed in the street - Peter as recently as April. She saw his body in the street, but she doesn't know how this son died:

Jules Vasquez
"Ma'am, do you know anything about the circumstances under which your son was killed?"

Shelmadine "Shemmy" Middleton
(Nodded head)

Patricia Norris, Aunt of Deceased
"We were at the police station this morning. We went to the police station this morning to find out the reason for my nephew's death and the policeman still has not told us anything."

Voice Of: Nekisha Flowers, Eldest Sister of Deceased
"The last time my other brother got killed we didn't say anything to anybody because some people just were seeing it as another one died. Chances are people will continue to see it as another one dead."

"My thing is that why is it that we have not been contacted by the police as yet. I believe that they were supposed to contact the family. I believe that is their job - to contact the family and inform the family that that such person was found dead. They don't have to give us the reason but please do you God damn job and tell us what has happen."

"If things were working out the way it supposed to, we wouldn't have known yet. As far as they know, we don't know because none of them came to tell us."

The women say they don't believe the police version of a shootout, which they heard second hand:

Shelmadine "Shemmy" Middleton
"If it were a shootout which one of them got touch? About 2 weeks ago they picked up my son and beat him and they let me go. Jemott told him that he will come back for him. The Sunday they let me go and on Tuesday they come back for him - they hold him again for 2 days and he says that they told him that they will come back for him."

Jules Vasquez
"They say that he was involved in illegal activities on Northern Ambergris Caye and that's why they him detained."

Shelmadine "Shemmy" Middleton
"Police will say anything. They will say what they want."

Patricia Norris, Aunt of Deceased
"If they had a shootout on the sea like what the policeman say my nephew would have been riddled with bullets - one gunshot to the head - hell no, we are not fool."

Jules Vasquez
"You think your nephew was executed?"

Patricia Norris, Aunt of Deceased
"I think so, by the police. Of course they do their stupid-ness but that is what the law is there for. Nobody put policeman out there as no judge and jury man, or no God damn killer."

And they say believe that his death was foretold in an encounter he'd had with the police two weeks before his death:

Voice Of: Ann Requena, Cousin of Deceased
"They put handcuff on him and they beat him and he told us that the police told him that when they come for him the next time (Jemott) is because they will put him in a shallow grave."

Voice Of: Nekisha Flowers, Eldest Sister of Deceased
"Two weeks ago police had my brother locked-up; they release him on the Sunday night all beaten up. He says that policeman Jemott knocks and beat him up - so much that he had to be taken to the hospital. The next thing that he said that the police told him was that it was already strike two - strike 3, they will bury him in a shallow grave, so I guess they already did it."

Jules Vasquez
"You think it was an orchestrated....?"

Voice Of: Nekisha Flowers, Eldest Sister of Deceased
"I don't know and I don't care. I want us to get his death certificate so that we can bury my brother. That's it."

And even as they prepare to bury him - they know Kendale was no saint:

Patricia Norris, Aunt of Deceased
"My nephew was not an angel. My nephew is a street person, everybody knows or who wants to know and the policeman knows that he is a street person. We are not condoling nothing that my nephew did. All we want is to know the reason why he was killed."

Voice Of: Nekisha Flowers, Eldest Sister of Deceased
"Like what my aunt just told you - he has his past; he was not a damn saint. My other brother just died 2 months ago - we were talking to him (Kendale) to behave - over the past two months we were trying to do things together as a family. Just last week me and all my sisters and my nephews went to Chetumal to spend the weekend together. Who would think that a week later the boy dead."

And now this mother who knows grief too well just has a few hardened life lessons:

Shelmadine "Shemmy" Middleton
"Nothing came out of the first two and this one is police."

A post mortem has not yet determined how many times Flowers was shot or where.