A former Belize police corporal has failed to overturn his manslaughter conviction after a three-judge Court of Appeal panel unanimously ruled that his 18-year prison sentence for shooting a 14-year-old boy in the back on a Placencia beach will stand.
Kareem Martinez, once a Corporal of Police at the Placencia Sub Formation, had challenged every aspect of his conviction before the country’s highest criminal court. On Wednesday, the court dismissed all eight of his grounds of appeal.
What happened that night
It was July 14, 2021, a COVID curfew night. Laddie Gillet and his best friend were hurrying back along the Placencia beachfront to the Chabil Mar resort to beat the 10:00 p.m. deadline. They had spent the evening eating birthday cake on the beach with friends.
Rounding a corner near the Placencia Beach Club Resort, they ran straight into a team of four police officers who had responded to a security guard’s call about suspicious persons. Startled by the sight of men in black, both boys turned and ran the other way. Laddie was shot in the back. The bullet passed through his chest. He was pronounced dead at 10:21 p.m.
The friend was handcuffed and taken to the police station for breaking the curfew.
The evidence that convicted him
A single 9mm shell casing was recovered from the beach near where Laddie fell. A forensic firearms examiner from the National Forensic Sciences Services laboratory examined it under a microscope and concluded it had been fired from the Bersa Thunder 9 pistol belonging to and recovered from Martinez that same night.
Every other officer present, SC Miranda, PC Pop, and PC Augustine, testified they heard only one shot and that none of them fired their weapon. The trial judge found all three had been evasive and were clearly trying to distance themselves from what happened. But even taking that into account, she found the evidence pointing to Martinez as the sole shooter overwhelming.
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Laddie’s friend, described by the trial judge as thoroughly credible and unshakeable under cross-examination, confirmed that he and Laddie were running away from the police, that neither of them was armed, and that there was no scuffle of any kind.
“I fired in the air” — the story the court didn’t believe
Martinez did not testify under oath. In an unsworn statement, he claimed he had spotted a shining object in one of the teenagers’ hands, believed it might be a firearm, and fired a single warning shot approximately ten feet into the air…not at the boys. He suggested that it was actually PC Augustine who shot Laddie, possibly at the exact same moment, so that witnesses only heard one bang.
The trial judge, Justice Moore, called this account “incredulous.” She pointed out that for Martinez’s version to be true, a bullet fired ten feet into the air would have had to travel backwards, downwards, and outwards across 75 to 90 feet to strike Laddie in the back…all within six seconds. The Court of Appeal agreed that was physically impossible.
On the theory about PC Augustine being the real shooter, the court was equally dismissive. Augustine was physically closer to the other witnesses than Martinez was. If he had drawn and fired a 9mm pistol, the court reasoned, someone among the five other people present, including the two teenagers, would have seen it. No such evidence existed. The court said accepting the alternative shooter theory would require pure speculation.
It also emerged during the trial that Augustine had lied about whether he was carrying a firearm at all. He initially denied it, then admitted he had a personal licensed weapon on him. The trial judge found he lied but concluded he did not fire it. The appeal court saw no reason to disturb that finding.
“Their conduct was less than exemplary”
The court did not shy away from criticising the police. The trial judge had found that all three officers who testified for the prosecution were clearly trying to minimise their own involvement in the events of that night, describing their conduct at the scene as “less than exemplary.” Even the security guard who made the original 911 call was found to have been dishonest — the judge believed he was present when the boys were chased, despite his claims to the contrary.
None of that, however, was enough to shake the core of the prosecution’s case.
All eight grounds dismissed
Martinez’s lawyers raised eight separate grounds of appeal, arguing among other things that the investigation was one-sided, that other officers’ hands and weapons were never tested, that the trial judge had unfairly intervened during the trial by asking too many questions, and that she had wrongly shifted the burden of proof onto Martinez himself.
The Court of Appeal rejected every single one. It found the trial judge’s handling of the case to be “detailed, sound and flawless,” and that she had at every stage correctly reminded herself that it was the prosecution, not the defence, that bore the burden of proof.
The verdict
Martinez will serve his 18-year sentence. Laddie Gillett was fourteen years old. He was running to beat a curfew.
