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A disturbing alleged incident near Santa Rita Park in Corozal has ignited widespread public concern over community child safety, after a local mother took to social media to accuse a former member of the Gilharry 7 group of involvement in an attempted child abduction.

According to the mother’s account, the frightening encounter unfolded when two men driving a van approached her teenage daughter and niece. She claims one of the men attempted to hold an unidentified substance close to one of the children’s faces before the confrontation escalated. Shaken by the experience, the mother streamed the incident live on social media to share her account, publicly naming the accused as a former Gilharry 7 member.

As of the latest update, however, Belizean law enforcement officials confirm no formal official report has been filed with police. Acting Staff Officer ASP Stacy Smith explained that while the mother did attend the Corozal police station on the day of the alleged incident, she was too overwhelmed by emotion to provide a formal, documented statement. “Commander Mendes of the Corozal Police Formation has directed officers to actively locate the mother and the two children to record their official statements and move forward with appropriate investigative steps,” Smith confirmed in a statement.

The mother, however, has raised sharp criticism over the police response to her report. She recounted that after she initially contacted authorities, officers promised to dispatch a mobile patrol unit to Santa Rita Park to collect evidence and survey the scene. But when she arrived at the park ahead of officers, no patrol ever showed up to the site, leaving her feeling abandoned and unsupported. “I called 911 to follow up, and officers insisted the patrol was already there, but there was no one at the park,” she shared in a phone interview. “I just couldn’t get any meaningful help from police.”

In a swift response to the public allegations, the Gilharry 7 organization has moved to distance itself from the accused, confirming that the man is no longer affiliated with the group. Representatives added that the former member has been struggling with documented mental health challenges, and the group has extended a formal apology to the affected family for the alleged incident.

Even after receiving the apology, the mother of one of the alleged child victims says she remains committed to pursuing full accountability and justice for the frightening encounter. The incident has already sparked broader conversation across the local community about gaps in child safety protocols and the responsiveness of local law enforcement to reports of threats against minors.

It was supposed to be a joyful milestone waiting just weeks away: a group of 28 young first-grade students at Ladyville Evangelical Primary School in Belize would break open their handcrafted piggy banks at the end of June, count out the coins they had slowly collected since January, and celebrate months of learning about patience, financial responsibility, and the value of hard work. That dream was shattered in an overnight weekend burglary that left the youngest victims of the crime grappling with confusion and heartbreak that extends far beyond the stolen cash.

When school staff arrived at the campus on Sunday to respond to reports of a break-in, they found a scene of chaos: multiple classrooms had been forcibly entered, desks were ransacked, school supplies were scattered across floors, and in the Infant Two Miller classroom, the most devastating discovery waited. Every one of the students’ handcrafted piggy banks, a core part of their semester-long financial literacy program, had been smashed open and completely emptied of all the coins the children had put away over five months.

Ladyville Evangelical Primary School Principal Elia Chi described the gut-wrenching task of explaining the senseless crime to students and their families this Monday morning. For young children who had been taught that consistent saving and discipline would reward them with a special treat at the end of the school year, explaining that an unknown person had taken everything they worked for was an unimaginable challenge. The entire school community was thrown off balance by the incident, Chi said, noting that the staff could barely focus on their usual routines in the wake of the break-in. Most concerning for school leadership was that the trauma of the theft would not discourage children from continuing to learn the value of saving — a core life lesson the program was designed to teach.

“It was really hard, and the classroom teacher told me that she didn’t have any words how to express this situation to her infant two students,” Chi said in an interview with local outlet News Five. “So I was the one that wrote a text message for her to please share with the class WhatsApp. And this morning, everybody here is sad. Like today we can’t function. Our mind is right there in what had happened. In particular because it’s our infant students. We’re teaching them how to save money and now just imagine how to explain to them that the money is not there. Because of someone, the money is lost. So we don’t want the children to change the mentality of saving. We want them to continue saving so that at the end of the year they can have something out of it.”

As local law enforcement continues their search for the perpetrators responsible for the break-in, an outpouring of community support has quickly emerged to help the young savers rebuild. Dr. Carol Babb, founder of Peacework Belize — an organization that has long promoted financial literacy education across Belizean schools — has already committed to providing brand new piggy banks for all 28 affected students. The Belize Taiwan Alumni Society has also launched fundraising efforts to replace the stolen savings and help the children restart their saving goals.

While a single criminal act succeeded in stealing months of hard work and children’s long-held anticipation, the rapid, compassionate response from the wider community has turned a devastating event into a new, unexpected lesson about collective kindness. The incident has left a lasting impact on the small school community, but the outpouring of support has given the students and staff hope that the children’s financial literacy journey can continue, and that the core lesson of patience and responsibility will not be lost to the crime. Local reporter Shane Williams contributed reporting for News Five.

In the busy afternoons outside primary schools across Belize City, a dangerous daily routine has become normalized, and long-time traffic safety advocates are sounding the urgent call for regulatory action before a preventable tragedy claims a young life.

For years, commuters and parents have relied on affordable, nimble motorcycle services – and in many cases, informal “runman” drivers – to beat rush-hour gridlock when picking up children from school. What has raised alarm among safety experts and educators is the widespread lack of basic safety precautions: young children as young as 6 or 7 are routinely squeezed between adult drivers or balanced on motorcycle fuel tanks, school bags strapped to overloaded handlebars, and in the vast majority of cases, no helmets are worn by the children or sometimes even the drivers.

Veteran traffic safety advocate Philip “Fawda” Henry, who has spent more than 20 years teaching pedestrian and road safety to students across Belize City, calls the trend a quiet public health disaster waiting to happen. “When you send a 7 or 8-year-old child home with a motorcycle driver who speeds and weaves through traffic, you are essentially sentencing your child to death,” Henry emphasized in an interview with local outlet News Five. He added that parents who dismiss established safety guidance that children under 9 should not be transported on public motorcycles bear direct responsibility for putting their children at grave risk.

Concern over the crisis is not limited to safety advocates. Administrators at Holy Redeemer Primary School, one of the city’s local primary institutions, confirmed that the problem has been a top safety priority for years – particularly after a 2024 accident that left one of their students severely injured when the child’s father lost control of his motorcycle while picking the student up from school. Since the incident, school leaders have repeatedly issued warnings to parents about the dangers of unregulated motorcycle transport for children, but the dangerous practice continues unabated outside the school gates every afternoon.

For many low-income Belize City households, motorcycle transport remains the only accessible and affordable option to get children to and from school amid limited public transit options and chronic rush-hour congestion. But Henry argues that convenience cannot come at the cost of children’s lives, and is calling on Belize’s transport department, senior leadership, and elected officials to introduce targeted new regulations to crack down on unsafe practices. He is pushing for strict new enforcement measures against unlicensed child transport and mandatory helmet requirements for all motorcycle passengers, regardless of age, that would hold reckless drivers and non-compliant parents accountable.

As the community debates the trade-off between accessibility and safety, the question remains: will policymakers act before more children are harmed, or will this dangerous routine go unaddressed until it is too late?

A routine motorcycle ride along Belize’s Bullet Tree Road ended in tragedy in late May 2026, when a loss of control claimed the life of 49-year-old Auria Ramos, a resident of Bullet Tree Falls Village. The 32-year-old operator of the bike, Melvin Quischan – also from Bullet Tree Fall Village – has been issued a formal notice of intended prosecution as law enforcement continues to unpack the circumstances of the fatal collision.

The investigation was launched shortly after 10 p.m. on Friday, May 22, when local police received emergency calls about the crash in Santa Familia Village. First responding officers arrived at the scene to find Quischan sitting on the roadway, with minor cuts and scrapes across his face and body. He was holding Ramos, who told first responders she was experiencing severe chest pain.

Emergency medical personnel from the Belize Emergency Response Team (BERT) arrived quickly and transferred Ramos to a local medical facility for urgent care. Despite medical intervention, Ramos died from her traumatic injuries several hours after the crash.

Per initial investigative findings, both Quischan – who was driving the Lifan brand motorcycle – and Ramos were riding along the road when Quischan lost control of the vehicle, causing it to veer off the pavement and crash. When reporters asked if impaired driving was being considered as a contributing factor, Assistant Superintendent Stacy Smith, the lead staff officer on the case, confirmed that while alcohol consumption has not been formally confirmed, responding officers detected a strong smell of alcohol on Quischan at the scene. Law enforcement requested a breath or blood sample to test for intoxication, but Quischan refused to comply with the request.

When asked about helmet use, a key factor in motorcycle crash survival, Smith told reporters he believes both individuals were wearing helmets at the time of the collision. Quischan remains in medical care for his minor injuries and is reported to be in stable condition as of the latest update.

Refusing to submit to an alcohol test following a crash is itself a criminal offense in Belize, and Smith confirmed that investigators are currently considering multiple charges connected to the incident. Smith noted that formal charges will not be filed until required procedural steps are completed as part of the ongoing investigation.

A manhunt is underway in Belize City for a veteran special patrol officer already linked to a high-profile 2024 assault case, after authorities filed new aggravated assault and wounding charges connected to a recent traffic-related incident. The target of the search is 38-year-old Special Patrol Officer Lewis Pascasio, who first made local headlines two years ago when he was accused of pulling a firearm on Belizean Olympian Shaun Gill during a public confrontation on Orange Street. That 2024 case remains active and is still progressing through the court system as of May 2026, according to local law enforcement updates.

Superintendent Stacy Smith, a senior staff officer with the Belize Police Department, confirmed the new charges and manhunt in a press briefing on May 25, 2026, explaining that the latest investigation stems from a complaint filed by another serving police officer. “As it relates to the inquiry pertaining to Mr. Pascasio, I spoke with one of the OCs in Eastern Division, and what he just advised me just a short while ago is that, yes, in fact, an incident occurred, and an investigation was triggered, and that investigation has resulted in charges being prepared for Mr. Pascasio in relation to aggravated assault and wounding as a consequence of a report made by a police officer,” Smith stated in the official briefing.

When pressed by reporters to confirm early unconfirmed reports that Pascasio was operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident, Smith declined to comment on speculation. He did, however, confirm that the entire incident was captured on closed-circuit security camera footage from a nearby gas station, where the confrontation unfolded after Pascasio allegedly ran a red light in the area. Smith noted that the recorded footage has already been reviewed by investigators and served as key evidence supporting the decision to prepare formal charges against the fugitive officer.

The development has renewed scrutiny of internal police oversight in Belize, coming as Pascasio still faces pending charges from the 2024 attack on the national Olympian. Local law enforcement has not yet issued a public timeline for Pascasio’s expected arrest, nor have they released additional details on the nature of the confrontation that led to the latest wounding charge. This report is adapted from a transcribed evening television newscast originally published online by local Belizean media.