Drive-by shootings in Belize City as a one legged man is arraigned for stealing a bicycle. A lone night watchman is murdered in San Pedro as several home invasions are reported in Corozal. Tourists are jacked in broad daylight on sight seeing tours in Cayo as day time burglaries occur in Placencia and PG. Five tons of cocaine is unearthed on a deserted caye while an American backpacker is found murdered in the sleepy Toledo Maya village of Indian Creek. A prominent expat real estate agent in Belize is found dead sitting in a chair on his porch on Ambergris Caye as another charge of unlawful carnage knowledge of a twelve year old minor in Orange Walk is filed in a courtroom in Belize City. Is paradise disintegrating before our eyes or simply a reflection of the world we live in today?

I can remember one night during the first trip I took to Punta Gorda in the far southern Toledo District of Belize. I had rented a driver and his truck for the day to take some photographs of the last ten miles of unpaved road along the Southern Highway in fear the road would be surfaced within the year. After the photo shoot, I was tired and dusty and therefore declined to go have a few Belikens with the driver. I paid him for his services, he signed the receipt acknowledging that he had indeed received payment in full and I assumed that was that.

About ten o’clock that same evening someone came a knocking on my hotel room door. As I opened the door, I was quite surprised to see two Punta Gorda uniformed police officers standing in the doorway. When I inquired as to what they were there for, they politely explained that the driver had said I failed to pay him. I promptly presented my signed receipt to which they again explained, "the driver says you did not pay."

The police officers then advised me that I should pay the man or I would have to go with them to the PG police department. By this time we were together on the veranda of the small hotel next to the local airstrip. Down below I noticed that the two officers were riding not in a police vehicle but in the same truck I had been bouncing along the Southern Highway that same day. Understanding the situation was only going to be resolved if I paid, I asked, “how much”?? The arbitrary price of BZ$75.00 was agreed upon, I paid the lead officer and until today I have simply let the story die a natural death.

That is until I started researching this story about crime in Belize. During that research I stumbled across a handful of tales on the Internet. There is the story talking about a gringo in Belize City that ran a successful storage business. One night eight men in black arrived to his gate announcing they were members of the Belize Police Department and demanded entrance into the property. The gringo according the online blog let them in and during a subsequent search of the premises the officers turned up a lone shotgun shell. Reportedly but not verified the gringo was charged with illegal possession of ammunition, an offence that could carry a fine of BZ$10,000. The gringo swore that he had never owned a gun in Belize, but paid a BZ$1500.00 bail and was released.

Although the outcome of the gringo’s case was not mentioned on the posting Internet website, BELIZEmagazine.com contacted Belize Police Department spokesperson Mr. G. Michael Reid for comment. Mr. Reid responded by saying, " the Police now have been enforcing stricter gun and ammunition laws and they were in no way picking on any particular person, certainly not any gringo...accusations about the Police planting evidence on anyone is a serious one indeed."

The reality of the matter, Belize is really no different these days than any other place in the America’s or on the rest of the planet for that matter From Omaha to Ullaan Bator to Paris to Abidjan to Spanish Lookout. Crime is a phenomenon as well as questionable tactics by law enforcement. In Belize locals and travelers and retirees alike need to accept the fact that proper security is a reality in the world we live in today. If you go out on the town and over indulge to the point whereas people jump in the back bed of your pickup truck for a free hitched ride and then later, as you sleep in an unlocked house with all the lights, they rob you of your worldly possessions. You simply cannot blame the local police for not properly securing you and your property or for getting into an encounter with an unscrupulous driver as I did.

And it’s not just something you can unexpectedly face in Belize. Why a very close friend of mine just emailed me the other day to tell me how his dear eighty-year old mother who lives in an exclusive gated community in Sun City in the U.S. state of Arizona fell victim to two intruders that invaded her protected home. Though she escaped the ordeal with the lost of jewelry and her confidence, they also spared the woman her life. She this day considers herself lucky, rightfully so my friend added.