7 News Belize

Three Senior Cops Placed On Suspension
posted (July 24, 2020)
And so, the immediate action being taken is that 3 senior officers are being placed on administrative leave, and interim replacements have been identified to hold over the posts that they held.

Here's what the CEO in the Ministry of National Security and the Police Commissioner had to say about it:

(Ret'd) Col. George Lovell, C.E.O., Ministry of National Security
"The ministry of national security views this as a matter that certainly needs swift and urgent attention and we have decided that it is important for us to be here with the commissioner as he brings to you sort of update on the investigations that he and his team are in fact doing and for you all to be appraised of what we intend to do going forward. Our initial investigation has caused us to put three senior officers on administrative leave."

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"We decided that certain senior level officers in eastern division had to go an administrative leave effective immediately and so as the CEO had mentioned Mr. Dawson who was the eastern division commander was placed on administrative leave, Mr. Arzu who is region one commander is on administrative leave and Mr. Lorenzo who is the commander of GSU also on administrative leave. Now, as you have heard Mrs. Magdaleno said that the directive was given to Mr. Dawson and he failed to transmit the directive downwards and that could be seen as what led to the chaos because had he trickled the directive down, then whatever happened would not have occurred. But Mr. Arzu also has a responsibility. You cannot deploy a riot team without consulting the commissioner of police and so he failed in that respect and he also failed in the respect that he was out there when this entire fiasco was taking place and he did nothing to intervene to stop it. Mr. Lorenzo on the other hand was acting on instructions from Mr. Arzu. But again, Mr. Lorenzo, as much as the investigation shows, he did some due diligence in trying to find out from Mr. Arzu where the directive came from and if the persons had been spoken to before and asked to leave. He was given assurance where that is concerned and so he acted on instructions given to him by Mr. Arzu. Now, for us, while yes you act on instructions you must ensure that whatever instructions you act on are lawful."

And the Commissioner also made it clear that the administrative leave is not the only disciplinary action being taken against these officers. Here's what he had to say about the step after the 5-days leave:

(Ret'd) Col. George Lovell, C.E.O., Ministry of National Security
"While those officers are on administrative leave we will have some replacement in their post so that the business that we have been tasked to do can continue and continue seamlessly. ACP Dawson will be replaced by ACP Rosado; Senior Superintendent Arzu will be replaced by his deputy Superintendent Reymundo Reyes and ASP Lorenzo, we will have a senior person be placed into his post until we can get to the bottom of this and that is Senior Superintendent Joseph. Those movements take immediate effect."

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I'll be making a submission to the CEO which will then go to the services commission next week requesting the suspension of the officers for 60 days in the first instance. We are hoping that we will be able to get the suspension approved before the 5 days administrative leave is up, so that from that they go straight into the suspension and then we then begin to look at the disciplinary process where I will be compiling the reports and the evidence that we have and will be forwarding that to the services commission through the CEO and the CEO again will be sending the officers a show-cause letter which they will have to then explain why disciplinary action should not be taken against them and then the ball begin to roll from there. But I want to give the public the assurance that as a police department we too are upset. We are disgusted over what happened. watching the video footages it really brings chills to me and I am sure the other people around the table can say the same. We pledge to do our best in ensuring that corrective measures are put in place."

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