I live in Oakland (a city of 400,000 by the way, which is ~130% the population of Belize), and it's far from the crime-ridden city many presume it to be, based upon media sensationalism. It's true that Oakland has a much more diverse population that the surrounding cities, which seems to make those usually white, elitists a bit nervous - and with that comes the token bad press in the corporate media. But to say that Oakland has "about 10 horrific crimes a day" is just flatly incorrect. Like anywhere, there are good and bad places - fwiw, I feel much safer in most of Oakland than I did in Belize City, or even in certain parts of San Pedro after dark.
Oakland is a beautiful city, full of incredible people of all stripes, with amazing weather, restaurants, history, museums, art displays, artists, musicians, performers, innovators, and just great people - don't believe the hype! Consider the source, etc. (now Oakland's city government - those folks are likely guilty of at least 10 "horrific crimes" each day, it would seem, but that's another story.) Oakland has one of the lowest police to citizen ratio for a major city, with just 636 sworn officers, that works out to 1 officer for every ~640 citizens - compare that to San Francisco which lies just over the Bay Bride = 1 officer to every 335 citizens. According to the Belize Police dep't website, the Belize PD has a force of 1200 sworn officers.