Tensions have reached a boiling point between law enforcement and a working-class Belize City family more than four weeks after 18-year-old Ewart Josiah Hernandez Jr. was fatally shot in August 2026. The conflict centers on repeated, increasingly aggressive search raids at the family’s property located at the intersection of Oleander and Mahogany streets, which escalated dramatically after Hernandez’s murder and the subsequent arrest of three minors connected to the address.
On the evening of September 4, 2026, officers returned to the home for another search, and took Jaime Anderson into custody. Anderson had previously drawn attention from authorities by posting public videos of earlier police operations at the property to social media. According to residents of the neighborhood, the corner lot has been the target of consistent police searches for more than two years, a pattern of scrutiny that intensified sharply following Hernandez’s killing.
The family has leveled formal accusations of excessive force against the Belize Police Department over the latest search operation. Anderson’s nephew acknowledged that law enforcement has a responsibility to solve violent crime and pursue investigative leads, but emphasized that the frequency of the searches and the aggressive tactics officers use during them cross the line into unacceptable misconduct.
In on-the-record interviews with local reporters, neighborhood residents detailed troubling accounts of the interaction during the September 4 raid. One resident described persistent harassment of people who gather at the location, claiming police label the property a gang yard and routinely stop and detain people without justification. “A lot of people hang out here, so they say this is clearly a gang yard. When we go out, they harass us — they don’t even give you space to go to the shop,” the resident explained, recalling an incident where he was detained while returning from a grocery run with his young nephew.
“When I asked if they had a search warrant, they didn’t answer, they just arrested me,” he added.
Another resident shared graphic details of aggressive force used during the raid, confirming that officers deployed pepper spray against the family matriarch and struck a young female cousin, who had just returned home from her shift at work, multiple times in the face. “It’s not wrong for them to come do their job, it’s the way they do it that’s wrong,” the resident stated, adding that the family plans to file an official misconduct complaint against the involved officers.
The family’s grandmother has issued a public plea to police leadership to end the targeted scrutiny of her household, stressing that none of her grandchildren were involved in Hernandez’s murder. This report is a transcribed excerpt from a local evening television news broadcast, with Kriol language dialogue rendered using standard regional spelling conventions.