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And while the outgoing Commissioner's comments certainly changed the mood of the event, the handing over of command was really about Chester Williams, who is now officially in charge of the Department. 

After the ceremony, we spoke with him about reaching the pinnacle of policing and what his strategy will be. Here's what he had to say:

Daniel Ortiz
"When you first stepped into the police training academy, did you foresee that today would take place?"

Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Really and truly no, everybody knows my history in terms of where I was when I joined the ranks of the Belize Police Force then and so for me to have thought then that this would come really and truly I didn't see it but as time progresses and my years in the department continues to accumulate and having worked under and see how many of the former commissioners of police operates, it inspired me to want to one day become the commissioner of police and I ensured that I worked towards achieving that goal with the combination of my work experience, my educational qualifications, here I am today. I'm humbled by the experience and I feel proud of the moment but like I said in my presentation that it is not yet about celebrating, the task ahead is still a difficult one, we all know that we are policing in tough times and I know that the Belizean people hold me in high regards and they are expecting a lot from me. I'm not going to say that I'm going to fulfil every expectations but I can assure the Belizean people that under my administration, we will ensure that we do our best to tackle the crime problem and we're going to do that working in partnership with the communities and other organizations both government and non-government."

"We are going to focus on 3 areas to address the crime issue: gangs, domestic violence and night clubs. When we look at our murder rates, the 3 major causes of murders last year were gangs, domestic violence and disputes that starts at night clubs and end up in fatalities. So if we want to make a dent, we have to focus on those 3 areas and we have met, myself and my management team; we're putting together crime fighting strategy, not throwing out what Mr. Whylie has started because what he did was a good one. We're going to build on that and see what we can do to be able to ensure that we come up with the right recipe to attack the crime problem. No matter what we do, we cannot stop all murders but we are going to ensure that we do our best to reduce the murder rate in Belize."