7 News Belize

Three Students Murdered: UB Take Stock
posted (March 28, 2019)
Frutos joins Dwayne Cummings and Masaki Yanai as the 3 UB students who have been killed in the last 6 weeks. It is a major concern for the University, and so, the history club students hosted a safety and security forum this afternoon at the Belmopan Jaguar auditorium. Of course you can't talk about safety and security without the police so the students invited Commissioner Chester Williams to give the keynote address and also to listen to students and give feedback as to how their concerns can be addressed. Here is more from the event.

Aleesi Chun- Vice President, History Club
"This event today that we are having is a follow up on the peace march and it is basically to establish dialogue on safety and security. And we got the Commissioner himself who, I think, could not be anybody better because he is the head and he has new initiatives and I think this is a forum for us students so he can present his agendas. What we as a student body can do to help combat crime and how we can also increase the safety here on campus because we saw a lot of our students who were attacked on and off campus. So, it was very important for us to do such events that we are experiencing here."

Chester Williams- Commissioner of Police
"I would want to think that this is a very good initiative on the part of the University of Belize. I have always said that as a police department, if it is that we are serious about fighting crime, if it is that we want to make inroads in the fight against crime, then we surely have to collaborate with other partners. What UB is doing here today is a classic example of what needs to be done in terms of ensuring that every stakeholder plays their role and every person within society understands that they as individuals have a role to play. So, my being here today is a testament to the fact that we are prepared and willing to work with other agencies to be able to ensure that we bring to the Belizean people the level of citizen security they so rightly deserve."

Courtney Weatherborne, reporter
"UB students are enraged, they are concerned, and very fearful. This is now the third UB student that has been targeted and killed."

Chester Williams
"Yes of course, that is natural. You would understand that there are certain things that occur within a society that is beyond the scope of the police. In the sense that, while it is unfortunate what happened to Mr. Frutos, obviously he was out socializing with friends and it was those same persons he was socializing with that eventually caused his demise. There is little to nothing the police could have done about that. But as individuals, what we can do is to ensure that whenever we go out to these establishments and we socialize with people, that we know exactly who it is that we are socializing with. It is also good that when you go out, you try to go out with people whom you trust, people whom you know. Do not try to go out and meet people whom you end up drinking with and associate with. Those are things that might eventually lead to harm being caused to you. So, while I do want to say that what happened to Mr. Frutos is unfortunate, it ought not to have occurred, regardless of the circumstances, whomever he had entrusted ought to have taken him home instead of taking him where they took him and did what was done to him. So, as a department we will continue to work with the University of Belize and other agencies to see how we can sensitize people more as to what they can do to ensure their own personal security."

Courtney Weatherborne
"Sir, what do you hope to come out of this event? Do you have a specific strategy to deal with the concerns of the UB students, especially on campus?"

Chester Williams
"What I hope to come out of this event is that there will be a stronger partnership with the police and the University of Belize and that partnership will extend beyond the issue of actually fighting crime but also to look at our officers development. We want to see if we can collaborate with UB in providing developmental training for officers and that again will go a long way in terms of how we interact with the public. You would know that often times we get a lot of bad rap from the community because of how we interact with them. So, UB does have the expertise that they can help the police to be able to improve the way how we do things like that. Most importantly, to let every UB student, who are a part of what is happening today, understand that they too have a role to play and let them know what role they can play to ensure that whatever it is that we intend to achieve in the fight against crime is realized."

Now as it relates to on-campus safety and security, the student had presented a list of demands to the President of the University of Belize and he responded saying that he will install more lights and even provide transportation for students who live in the Belmopan area to get home safely.

Clement Sankat- President
"The issue of crime is a national issue but it impacts all of us. You heard about the boys deaths but it impacts the campus too because we have been speaking about criminal elements around our campus. You would have heard, students have been robbed in campus. You heard a couple of months ago that our security guards in Belize City were robbed; and they broke into the security office. The motivation was clear in my mind. I'm not going to repeat it. And then, two nights ago, two students or a student and her boyfriend were robbed on the campus at 8:30 at night. So, the criminal elements are creeping into Belmopan which, as a newcomer, I've been told is the most peaceful city probably in the entire Caribbean; well that is how I feel about it. I feel very peaceful it is a very quiet place. But you are seeing elements of criminality around us. When one of our students is murdered in Belmopan, when criminal elements are moving close and even in to the campus. So, what is it we are going to do? I mean there is no point lamenting all of this anymore. What will we do? Well you got to address the root issue. Why criminality in Belize? And as I said before, criminality in Belize is just following what we see in some of the other countries. But at the campus level we have to do what we have to do. So, we have been trying to light the campus up much more than it has ever been lit up. In fact, at night it looks pretty decent. When I came here two years ago it used to be dark. I couldn't understand how people could live and work, because we have a residence here, work and study in such dark environment. We have put up more lights, we have put up solar lights because electricity costs; but clearly we have to put more. There are some who feel that the campus you can walk in an any area. You don't have to use the official path ways. Well, students have to use the official pathways. They say, 'President, if you close up so many things they are going to be unhappy. Security comes at a price, it comes at a price of your own inconvenience sometimes. So, you can't be wanting to walk all over the campus and using little track. We want to close some of those but I'm getting a little bit of push back in some quarters. I care for my students I don't want them to walk around all over night. So, from Monday night we are going to have a bussito here- I like the name by the way; we say in Trinidad matritaxi. But bussito sounds much more latin. Hopefully you will catch them. They are going to be using the bussito from 6:30 to 9:30. The bus will be parked right in the middle of the campus and will run three times; just dropping the students around the Belmopan area."

The president also welcomes the police department to set up a booth at the UB campuses.

Today, President Sankat put out a statement saying, quote, "Kevin possessed great potential. He was a UB student, who also worked full-time…(he would have graduated) in June of this year with a Bachelor's in Accounting….these killings of our young people must stop and this matter must be addressed.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize