Off duty officer kills Elmore Neal

The Belize Police Department is once again on the defensive after a young man was shot and killed by an off duty officer on Saturday afternoon March 6.  The deceased is Elmore Lemott Neal, a resident of Central American Boulevard.  The official police report states that an officer was in his private vehicle and in civilian clothes in the area of Central American Boulevard and Matura Street on Saturday when he observed a young man being chased by another young man who was armed with what appeared to be a chrome .22 caliber revolver. 

The off duty officer says he got out of his vehicle, identified himself as a police officer, and ordered the young man, who

was later identified to be Elmore Neal, to drop the weapon.  But the officer alleges that Neal didn’t; in fact, he says Neal turned the gun on him.  That is when the officer pulled out his licensed 9mm service revolver and fired a shot which hit Neal in his left ribcage. He walked a short distance and then collapsed   Elmore Neal was pronounced dead at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Police are strongly defending the officer involved because they say that, were it not for his intervention, a murder could have occurred. 

For proof, police say Tyrone Thomas, the man who Elmore Neal was seen chasing, was shot at the corner of Trinity Street and Central American Boulevard.  Thomas told police he was standing at the corner when a man dressed in black rode up and fired several shots in his direction.  Thomas was shot in his left arm and was treated and released from the hospital. 

But the shooting evoked fury of residents in the area on Saturday with everyone saying that Elmore Neal was wearing a jersey pants which doesn’t have pockets and so if he had a gun, it would have been in his hands and they didn’t see it. Tiffany Arana says that Elmore Neal may have had a handgun, but even if he did, “they could have shot him in his hand and then Elmore would have understood that he done get shot and he can relax himself.  He didn’t even do a warning shot; he just shot up the young boy like that.” 

Elmore Neal was shot and died in the street in the arms of his mother Sarita Lemott. Elmore was her youngest son and the first to die from violence.  She recalls being inside her home on Saturday, which is across the street, when she heard the gunshots and ran out to find her son gasping for life at the corner of Central American Boulevard.  She too laments that her son didn’t have to be fatally wounded and that he could have been disarmed without the use of deadly force. Police say the Internal Affairs Department is investigating the incident.