Trio Charged for Unlawful Public Assembly in Teakettle

Three residents from the Arizona area in Teakettle have been charged for illegal assembly at the Belmopan Police Station. Twenty-three-year-old Mervin Correa, twenty-two-year-old Guadalupe Guerra and fifty-five-year-old Plines Gutierrez were all charged in connection with a bonfire on Tuesday that blocked the entrance to the area. The burning tires was held as protest by residents to the police killing of nineteen-year-old Edwin Jose Hernandez this past Sunday in the village. In the wake of the protest, officers attached to the Special Patrols Unit detained the trio, who was subsequently charged today. Victor Correa told News Five that the detention of his brother and others was because he took a video of the officers brutalizing a female resident.

Victor Correa, Brother of Melvin Correa [File: December 5th, 2017]

"I was at work when they just called me and said that they were looking for my brother. And then I called somebody and they told me that they were chasing him because he had a video that they were hurting some girl and a lot of things. They just gone to the village and not asking anything, just knocking the person that was there are the place."

Reporter

"So they are accusing him of starting the tire fire as well or just accusing him of capturing the incident?"

Victor Correa

"Well I don't know much, but I think only about the videos because the other guy told me that the police say that he has a recorded video so they were chasing him."

Correa and Guerra were both given police bail, but in the case of Gutierrez, the Salvadoran mechanic was also charged with illegal entry and as such, he remains in custody.�

Channel 5