3 days ago, we told you about 68-year-old Calvin Wright. He's the
elderly Belize City resident who was knocked down and killed last
Saturday morning, while he was on Morning Glory Street. A police
officer has been criminally charged for running him over, but his
relatives are insisting that since Wright was killed by a police
officer in a police vehicle, the department ought to cover all his
funeral expenses.
His loved ones reached out to our news team today to complain that
police are treating them with indifference, even though a life was
lost. Here's what his cousin told us this morning about their
frustrations with the police senior command:
Marsha Smith - Cousin of the Deceased
"My family that they had killed. They said that it's a mistake? No, they
said that it was [a pile of] garbage. That's what they said. How could you
ever take a man on the corner of a street, sitting down, for garbage? So,
obviously, you're so careless as a driver that you will run over garbage
with your truck or your vehicle. So, the way I see it. That's bogus. His
mother is 87. She's kinda going and coming. One minute, she remembers her
son, the next, she asks who died."
Reporter
"The police are suggesting that they don't have his personal documents?"
Marsha Smith
"How in the world - this next thing came across as you asked. How in the
world they could know his name was Calvin Wright, and his age, 68. So,
where are his documents? They have to have it. How will they know his name?
[They] still put him as John Doe, and put him in their freezer at the
hospital, and say that he is homeless. He is not homeless. He has a family.
From the time he came back from America, we gave him this downstairs. I
went to the police station and I told them, he's not homeless. We gave him
the downstairs, but he doesn't like to keep at one location. So, when he
goes, he goes for long. We don't see him, but every 2 weeks, his family
sends in his money. It's a struggle because the police looked at us and
told us that they are going to give us 1 casket. We don't have finance.
This lady doesn't have that. One casket? They need to come better.
Insurance, something, has to help bury this man. We can't leave this man in
the morgue for so long. We don't have the money to attend to him."
Constable Terrence Sutherland, a 20-year-old officer attached to the
Gang Suppression Unit, has since been arraigned before Magistrate
Aretha Ford for the charges of manslaughter by negligence, causing
death by careless conduct, and driving a motor vehicle without due care
and attention.
No plea was taken from him, and he was released on bail of $3,000.
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