Another teenager has lost his life to gun violence in Belize City during a spike in violent crime. That victim has been identified 19-year-old Collet Morter, a resident of Riverside Street in the Lake Independence Area.
According to police, at around 9:10 p.m. on Monday March 16th, 2020, they went to a home, located at #8025 Riverside Street. They were responding to reports that a shooting incident had just occurred there. When they arrived they found a young man, later identified as Collet Morter, who was suffering from a single gunshot wound to the body. About 20 minutes later, Morter was pronounced dead by an on-duty doctor at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
Investigators have since been able to establish that at around 9:05 p.m. that night, Morter was at his friend’s house on Riverside Street. Morter and other individuals were watching television when they heard someone calling his name out. He went outside to find out who it was, but a gunman was reportedly hiding. That assailant ambushed Morter and shot him once to the body. He was rushed to the KHMH, but that injury quickly claimed his life.
His mother, Doreen Baltazar, has since opened up to the press to share the pain that her son’s murder has caused her and her other family members.
Baltazar said, “I’m hurt. Losing your first child, it hurts…He’s a cool guy because he can befriend anybody. It’s just the environment that we are in that caused this to happen.”
She has shared her suspicion about why she thinks her son was killed. According to Baltazar, the neighborhood they live in is under siege by groups of young men who are trying to claim turf. Readers may be aware that several warring gangs call the Lake Independence Area their home. Baltazar suspects that her son became a victim of that fight over territory. She also pointed to the possibility that her son could have been targeted due to a recent murder in the city. She said that there was a fatal shooting on Ebony Street and that people were suggesting that her son had something to do with that crime.
