Email

Print

The roughly 8 weeks of calm which came with the COVID 19 State of Emergency has been disrupted with a recent spike in murders countrywide.

Since last week Friday, there have been 5 killings - two of those were cold blooded executions in the past 24 hours.

The first happened around 6:30 in Belize City - where 33-year-old Xinwu Zhu, known to his customers as “Joeâ€￾ was shot in front of his store.

His business is on Hopkins Street - on the northside, and yesterday evening, he was casually eating a plate of foot as he sat outside. That’s when a gunman arrived pretending to be a customer - but getting ready to kill the well known barber. No attempted robbery, no attempt to break and enter, just an execution. With the help of surveillance video Daniel Ortiz has the story of what happened next. We warn you that the images are not suitable for children:

Footage captured by his business’ surveillance video shows Xinwu - known as Joe Zhu - sitting on the pavement close to the entrance. He is quietly eating a plate of food when a slim-built man rides up on a bicycle. The young man’s face is shielded by a shirt, to act as his face mask, and he is also wearing a cap.

The man then drops his bicycle and begins to pretend like he is a legitimate customer. There is a moment when he looks over at Zhu, as if to confirm his target.

A few seconds later, the man then reaches into his right pocket, and he pulls out a handgun.

He then quickly takes aim at Zhu and starts firing, and that’s when the businessman realized that he was in danger.

The gunman then starts firing wildly in Xinwu’s direction, who tries to take cover in between two parked vehicles on his property, but it appears that 1 or more of those five shots hit him in the midsection.

He then collapses to the pavement, and the gunman then dashes down the street on foot to make an escape, completely abandoning the bicycle he arrived on.

Zhu struggles on the ground for a few more seconds as he tries to get up. Shortly thereafter, a relative opens the door to his business place and starts frantically shouting for help.

Police were around the corner and responded within a minute. They rushed him to the KHMH for emergency surgery - but due to extensive injury to his internal organs, he passed away at 1:30 am.

Police have the surveillance video, but have made no arrests.

Zhu leaves behind a wife and a daughter. All accounts of his character are that he was a well-liked, easygoing and hardworking barber. Everyone who we spoke to say that he was no troublemaker and his violet death is puzzling to say the least.