Police to “crack down” on home invasions and sea piracy

By Aaron Humes: Despite their limitations, the Police Department is aiming to crackdown on a recent epidemic of sea piracy and invasions of homes on land.

The Department, through Crimestoppers, has issued a reward for information that will lead to the capture of the pirates. Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa said today that police and the Coast Guard are “very close” to identifying suspects and it is now about nailing down the “concrete evidence” needed to put them away, not just for seagoing violations but also for major crimes.

On the specific case of Christian Gusenbauer, shot and robbed Friday night at Lark Caye off Placencia, police needed up to two hours to get to the area six miles east due to the rough seas caused by the cold front coming in that night. That led Gusenbauer to use social media to alert his friends and, Musa said, those Facebook posts also alerted police and himself almost as clear as if Gusenbauer had called 911, and so was appropriate in his dire circumstance.

Musa called the Austrian, 46, “a good sport” who “loves this country as much as we do,” and revealed that as many as three groups are active at sea and one of them may have been his attackers.

To deter future attacks, Musa said, greater assistance from the use of technology is needed. The police are relying on camera footage from areas in and around Placencia to identify those involved in the Gusenbauer attack.

Also set upon out west was Contractor General Omar Mitchell, who was tied up and robbed of two motor vehicles and his laptop on Friday night. The likely attackers were “Belizean Hispanic,” according to Musa – they spoke broken English and Spanish mixed together. No suspects had been named in that case as of this morning.

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