7 News Belize

Died 34 Days after Being Shot; Mom Wants to Know Where The Guns Come From
posted (September 3, 2019)
27 Year old Rafael Usher died today at the KHMH - 34 days after he was shot.

He had spent the month of August fighting for his life in the KHMH but finally succumbed this afternoon.

Usher was shot on July 31st while he was riding a cycle on Central American Boulevard, heading towards his home on Arlington Drive. He received multiple gunshots, and the ones to his abdomen left him with significant damage to his internal organs.

Today we spoke to his mother about the ordeal she's been through in the last month standing by her son's bedside with hopes and prayers for his survival.

Desiree Young, Mother of the deceased
"Rafael had major surgery to his spleen and his pancreas and he lost a kidney, and they busted up a whole inside, his stomach was messed up. So the doctor kept going in to reconstruct the stomach but no success. He was in severe pain, severe pain. Just today I noticed that. Now that he's dead. Every Time they had his pampers up to here and just today, I saw the big hole in my son's belly because of the gun."

"I hear it was about a cycle but the cycle didn't even belong to Rafael. I don't know why he would go and fool with a cycle. I had a cycle right in the shop to fix. I had just bought a vehicle and I gave them the cycle to drive. Rafael didn't have to do things like that. His father and I took care of him. I did everything for him. I washed everything for Rafael. Rafael didn't have to do that. But it's just friends, friends messed up his life, and the guys caught him off guard when he was coming home. And they shot my son for nothing and my son punished, punished, punished. He was fighting but he couldn't fight anymore."

"I don't know what this Belize is coming to, I don't know what, what, what, what. I Pray that Dean Barrow does something Chester Williams does something where did those guys get those guns from? A big hole in my son's stomach."

"Sometimes I come 11:00 o'clock. Where is Rafael? No Rafael, he hasn't come in yet. Everytime I come and scold him. He says mom I'm right at my friend. I say Rafael you don't know what could happen from here to there. Stay in the house. He didn't want to stay in the house there is only so much a mother can do, only so much. He left me with only memories , only memories."

Cherisse Halsall, reporter
"How Old was he?"

Desiree Young, Mother of the deceased
"27. He didn't have a baby yet. Too many girls liked Rafael and he didn't get any of them pregnant. I always asked him when will you have a baby? But no, he didn't leave me with any son. My nephew came and had two, but he didn't have any, none, none, none. He was 27 a young young boy to lose his life. He hadn't even lived his life yet."

Cherisse Halsall, reporter
"What do you feel that the police should do about gun control in this country?"

Desiree Young, Mother of the deceased
"I would want them to bring some laws on these guns and laws on this killing. Hang those boys, hang them they are doing too much, you need to hang them. Dean Barrow needs to hang them Chester Williams, somebody you have to do something. Belize is just a little handful of people and some many things have happened in this country. What else is left? We are losing all our young people. All our young people are going if they aren't dead they're in jail. What else? What else will we do? A little country like Belize, too much Violence, too much violence."

"And this gang here, gang here, gang, I don't know what they get out of these gangs. For what what are they gang banging for, for nothing, for color, for base. For what? What? This gang gang thing I don't know why senseless, useless."

No one has been arrested for Usher's shooting.

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