By Belize Live News Staff: The evening chore was dishes. The evening’s trouble arrived through the front door, asking for money.
The Belize Police Department reports that a 57-year-old Orange Walk Town pharmacist was at his sink at about 9:50 p.m. when his son came home appearing under the influence of alcohol or drugs, hand out, demanding money.
The father said no, and he had his reasons counted to the dollar. That very morning, at about 6:00 a.m., he had opened his brown wallet to find BZ$300 gone, and in a house whose only other resident is the young man’s chronically ill mother, his suspicion, as he told police, had exactly one place to land. He confronted his son about the missing money. The son denied it.
Then the conversation ended and the fists began. Twice, according to the report, the young man raised his fist to strike his father, and twice the blow never landed, because the older man caught his son’s hand and held it. A neighbour made the call to police that the father could not make with his hands full of his son’s anger.
The young man, identified as Rojer Ismael Duran, 26, unemployed, of Orange Walk Town, was detained. His rights form waited a day, served on August 4 once he was in a state to understand and sign it, having appeared highly intoxicated and aggressive, and on August 5 the formal charge landed: common assault. He met the final caution with silence.
Duran is presumed innocent unless and until the court rules otherwise, and the missing money remains an accusation his father believes and he denies, no part of any charge.
What the court cannot rule on is the ache inside the case. A pharmacist who has spent a career handing medicine across a counter could not medicate the trouble in his own kitchen, and the strongest thing he could do for his family that night was hold a fist still and let a neighbour dial. Families carrying a loved one’s substance struggles know that arithmetic too well, and for them the door to help, through health services and community support, stands open before the police station’s ever has to be.
