And today the Commissioner of Police was in the Antelope Street Extension area, where Elwin Lewis was killed on Friday, overseeing police operations. Our news team met him there and Courtney Menzies has this story.

A swarm of police officers lined the sidewalks in Southside Belize City - and all too familiar sight for residents. Cops descending in numbers on known gang members can only mean that a state of emergency has been put in place.

And this morning, the Commissioner of Police confirmed it:

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"As you would be aware by now, a state of emergency was declared this morning, covering almost the entire Southside Belize City and the Hattieville and Another World area of Roaring Creek village as well as Young Bank area of Camalote Village. And so we also have police and BDF operating in Roaring Creek and Camelot picking up those persons we believe are part and parcel of the flare up of gang violence in the Belmopan area."

This state of emergency was born out mainly out of three murders - that of Elwin Lewis and Nigel Williams in Belize City, and PC Dylan Anthony in Roaring Creek.

There were also two non-fatal shootings in Belize City on Sunday.

And while gang violence is not as prevalent as it was just a few years ago, does this increase warrant such drastic measures? After all, the current Minister of Home Affairs had been one of the most vocal critics of states of emergencies.

But the ComPol believes otherwise.

Courtney Menzies:
"The government has long criticized the use of state of emergencies, chalking it up to a failure of the police department to not being able to control crime. Is this some kind of admission of some kind of failure?"

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Sometimes I wonder where Channel 7 gets their information from. I have never heard the government being critical of it."

Courtney Menzies:
"When they were in opposition."

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I've heard that the SOE must be used as a measure of last resort. I don't think that any reasonable Belizean would ever say that the government and the police is not doing enough. We have an entire LIU program which is geared towards helping young people, to help those young men who are caught up to see how they can come out of living that lifestyle. We are doing interventions, they are given employment opportunities so the truth is that the government and the police is trying but again, we all know that there are going to be those persons who will not want to live a peaceful life and may continue to live that violent lifestyle and so the SOE is geared at going after those persons."

And the ComPol says that only few are being targeted this time around. He explained that those who are part of the LIU will be allowed to continue the program, and that the SOE will allow the police to conduct more thorough investigations.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"These young men who are going to be detained under the SOE, the intention is one, to have them investigated by CIB because many of them are being accused of shootings or even murders and then some of them are also being accused of being a member of a gang so the CIB are going to be able to follow up on those shootings and murder investigations while the GI3 will be able to follow up on the gang issue to see if we will be able to come up with charges to charge them for being a member of a gang.The SOE gives us that ability because one of the things we are getting from witnesses when we have these shootings is that they fear to cooperate with the police because they fear retribution coming from those persons who are accused of committing these shootings and murders so with them being in prison, it will be able to give people the opportunity to be able to speak freely without having to worry about repercussions from those persons who are involved in these crimes."

But critics of SOE's will say it's a breach of the human rights of the detainees'. While the ComPol didn't deny this accusation, he said that their rights do not trump those of innocent civilians.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Which rights is more important, the rights of 50 persons who hold the country or the city hostage or the rights of over 140,000 in the city or the rights of 440,000 people, we have to strike a balance and I'm sure that some human rights activists are going to agree that as a part of human rights, we have to look at the greater picture to see if we're going to allow these people whose rights we believe should be protected to continue to extinct themselves. I think that we allow the extinction to continue them we will be in breach of human right norms because we are seeing a trend and we just allow it to continue."

The SOE will last 30 days.