Belmopan constable charged with prisoner
death
After two days of intense
investigation of the entire Belmopan police formation, a police officer has
been charged with murder. Constable Jesus Canton appeared in court today and
was charged with the death of Daniel Tillett, a detainee who died while in
police custody on Independence Day. The officer in charge of the station
Inspector Aaron Guzman has been interdicted from duty. Tillett was taken into
custody on the afternoon of September twenty-first, while he was celebrating at
the Independence Park in Belmopan. He was dead just hours later. Belmopan
police claimed he was drunk and suffocated in his own vomit. The medical
examination told a very different story indicating Tillett had water in his
lungs, a ruptured liver and a fractured skull. Police immediately detained
three police officers and questioned everyone else who was on duty. Tillett's
family went to the Human Rights Commission after they were allegedly told by
other prisoners that Tillett had been beaten by police. He was buried today at
Our Lady of Guadelupe Cathedral in Belmopan. Police have declined to comment on
whether two other constables are still being detained, saying only "the
investigation is continuing". The scandal follows on the heels of another
death at the station three weeks ago when a man accused of child molestation
and incest was reported to have hanged himself inside his cell.