Tuesday, July 14th, 2015. BMG: Dangriga police say he threatened them with a gun, but family members of 28 year old Leopold Myvette of Hope Creek Village, Stann Creek, believe he was wrongfully and unnecessarily targeted.
According to police, they responded to reports made by multiple persons of someo
ne in the village threatening people with a firearm.
When their team arrived in the area and spotted a man fitting the description they had, they ordered him to stop; he turned his weapon allegedly on them and they returned fire.
Myvette was shot four times in the left shoulder, twice to the abdomen and once to the left thigh and died at the Western Regional Hospital in Belmopan.
However, Myvette’s family and friends tell a different story. An eyewitness and friend of Myvette’s says he was sitting with friends at the basketball court when officers arrived and told everyone to freeze, then starting shooting at Myvette, hitting him in the leg. He tried to run and police took aim, hitting him three more times.
Myvette’s niece Jez Lizama insists police had no reason to shoot and kill her uncle because he didn’t aggress them and did not have a firearm on him at the time; police never found one.
Myvette’s relatives and friends are angered that his life was taken by policemen in what they believe to have been a senseless and unnecessary shooting; internal investigations are standard in these types of incidents but none have been reportedly started.