AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Caye Caulker 9 Month old searched in stroller

A concerned mother residing in Caye Caulker village is expressing concern that her 9 month old baby boy was searched by a police officer without the permission of his parents/guardian. The incident unfolded around 6:30 pm today, Friday, November 23. The mother says that the baby boy who was asleep in a stroller, was out with his father when they were stopped by a trio officers. The common law husband was searched and according to the mother, without the permission of the father the child was with, the officer, a Corporal, proceeded to search the 9 month old baby. The irate mother wants this unsettling incident to be addressed by the police high command. I have encouraged her to make a report to the Professional Standards Bureau.

LOVEFM

It is worth noting that the cops are often just looking for a bribe opportunity.

That is disturbing and I know if it were here a nine month old getting searched without parents permission grounds for a case of assault of a minor. Very serious here.

"worth noting" Dane? What kind of libelous crap is that? I've lived here many years and have NEVER been solicited for a bribe by a policeman. I don't know, maybe you come off as a sucker or something but I think you owe the police an apology.

Are we acquainted?

It's always the same, people rant about the crime here, saying the police should do more and when they do try and do a better job those same people rant and rave about little things that the police do. The police did a search of the stroller because it is a know fact that drug users will hide there stash anywhere, even in a babies stroller. People should support the local police more, maybe then they would be more responsive. Also this is Belize and not the USA,(thankfully) so saying things like it would be (very serious here) just does not count. If you live here then you know what a difficult job the understaffed police dept have. There are always going to be some bad officers in any police force around the world, stop trying to make our police force look totally corrupt. I say good work to the Caye Caulker Police dept.

I agree. There are good people on the force and they do not pay them a living wage. Many have families in other places to support. The living conditions in the barracks are dreadful. Sometimes the Gov does not send their paychecks until weeks late.
What would you do if your kid has no schoolbooks or shoes and you saw a guy walk by you knew was holding?Spend all day booking him for possession so he could be released in the city? Or accept a twenty and your kid has shoes so he can go back to school?
The cop doesn't have to be genuinely corrupt to make those kind of choices.
It gets easier to do after the first time. When you walk by the regular crowd of dope dealers by the flea market do you ever wonder how they can be so invisible to the entire police force?
Ask them. I have.
Pretending like this isn't the real world for these guys leaves a fellow with no
understanding of what's going on at the station.
How do I know this?directly out of the mouths of both honest and dishonest cops and the people who pay them.
This has caused many of the local families to regard all cops as crooked. This blanket condemnation leaves good cops with less incentive to do their jobs.
Our recent sergeant Wade was a good cop. Many on his force were neither crooked nor actively working. They were just hanging around. He was promoted out of Caye Caulker. Were were lucky to have him for a while.

No, I don't believe we're acquainted Dane. I apologize if I came off a bit harsh. I just get vex when Belize police are seemingly stereotyped with the habits of police in spanish countries. I've not known the police to "solicit" bribes. Then again I'm not a dope dealer. It is of course well known that certain drug dealers pay off certain policeman for at least a forewarning of an impending raid. It is my understanding that this has gotten tougher with this new batch of cops.
But as to this new bunch and incidents such as this stroller thing it seems they have adopted a guilty until proven innocent approach. I've no idea if the father in question was a "known" drug dealer or not but I doubt these new guys did either. As an example let me relate a recent incident near what you refer to as the flea market (the palapas?). Myself and 4 older gentlemen were relaxing at a vendors table when police arrived and quickly went about frisking everyone save myself (white man) and searching all our belongings. The new corporal said he was acting on a tip. Any cop with more experience on CC would have known who we all were (certainly not drug dealers).
In my humble opinion as a guest here I would suggest the way to reduce corruption would be to lose the 2 minimum 3 max rule, allow the village to chose a chief of police and allow him to chose his officers. Maybe provide suitable housing for officers to become a real part of the community with their families.

Officers are rotated to prevent them from being too close to the villains for too long. The kind of corruption I outlined grows little by little and the head cops know it. When we have good cops they are soon gone in this system of rotation along with the bad.
They can't let each community pick the best out of the force obviously.
Who gets the losers? If you were voting for a sergeant,the top job here, wouldn't you support your brother in law?
Then your family could get away with murder.
About never being solicited for a bribe. Do think it is possible that the cops might have let that search not happen if you had a couple twenties?
The villagers do.

Most posts I see here are like my two previous.
We talk about the police but offer no solutions.At least Nate is trying to suggest something, based on the experiences he has had.
My solution is to encourage folks here to support a private security company with lots of cameras and a highly trained force paid on a monthly basis by those who want protection.
They would integrate completely with the police, providing camera and community intel, training, equipment etc.to the regular police.
As they rotate, the cops would take that training to other places.
The cameras would need 24 hour manning which could be done by off duty cops at the barracks. This would bring additional income they need badly to the honest ones, and a good reason to stay honest.
And a rapid police response.
The cops need a camera and a white paper on the wall to take pics of every crook they pick up, costing less than $100.
They need a $100 fingerprinting kit for the same guys. New cops could flip through the pics while they are dozing at the station so they get up to date on their first day, instead of on their last week on assignment here.
They need a camera over the Water Taxi ticket booth you would be obliged to show an ID when buying the ticket.
Got robbed? Look at these cam shots until you see the guy, holding up his ID.
None of these things would need a big budget. In fact I would pay for all three of these ideas, if the cops had support security to make it work.