Mayflower grenade attack

The Mayflower grenade attack^[i] was an allegedly gang-related attack perpetrated in the evening of 18 May 2008 in Mayflower Street in Southside Belize City. A lone cyclist lobbed a live Czechoslovak M40 grenade at a group of people who were socialising streetside, leaving sixteen year old Darren Trapp fatally injured, and a further eleven others injured. Two suspects were arrested, charged, and tried for the attack, but were subsequently acquitted. The attack is deemed the first mass casualty event via explosive device in the Belize's history, and is thought to have prompted further grenade attacks in Southside Belize City (likewise allegedly by gangs).

A boom in violent and organised crime in Southside Belize City followed the introduction and adoption of Bloods and Crips gangs into the area by US deportees in the 1980s, not yet mitigated by the 2000s.^[1] By April 2008, the country had already seen 29 murders that year, including the Putt Putt mass shooting in Southside on 8 February, with Assistant Commissioner of Police Crispin Jeffries noting, "the cycle of violence that we are seeing needs urgent attention [...] the number of incidents of violent crimes, particularly in the deeper part of the Southside of Belize City, is becoming unbearable".^[2] Mayflower was an especially violent area of the already-dangerous Southside, with Jeffries claiming any statistical analysis would reveal it as the single deadliest street for young people in the last two decades.^[3]

At circa 8:40 pm CT on 18 May 2008, a male subject on a bicycle approached a group of young people socialising in the Bailar portion of Mayflower Street (corner with Vernon Street) in Southside Belize City.^{[n 1]} The subject hurled an small object at the group.^{[n 2]} Thinking the Czechoslovak M40 grenade was a rock, one of the group (sixteen year old Darren Trapp) kicked it back to the hurler, triggering the explosion.^[4] The defensive grenade released a barrage of pellets, usually lethal within 11 yards (10 metres) of the blast.^[5] The shockwave shattered windows and shook nearby homes.^[6] The suspect sped off to Central American Boulevard via Pine and Ebony Streets.^[7] Policemen and soldiers at a police booth on Vernon Street (a few yards from the attack) chased on foot but could not reach the cycling suspect.^[7] Victims were rushed to Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.^[7]

The attack resulted in the death of sixteen year old Darren Trapp, and injuries to eleven others.^{[n 3]} A survivor compared the explosion's aftermath to that of a warzone.^{[n 4]} KHMH were forced to call in 20 extra staffers to deal with the emergency.^[8] Conscious Youth Development Programme personnel met with victims' families on 19 May.^{[n 5]} Youth for the Future held a peace rally on 23 May.^[9]

Police believed the attack was gang retaliation for a prior unreported shooting in St Martin de Porres.^[10] They promptly increased mobile patrols and conducted random searches across the city.^[11] Kareem Smith (20) and his brother, Akeem Smith (16), were arrested and charged for the attack on 23 May, with the latter identified as the alleged perpetrator.^[12] Both were acquitted.^[13] The Ministry of National Security (now Home Affairs) and the Police Department unveiled a revamped plan to combat crime on 11 August.^{[n 6]} After a British L109A1 grenade was lobbed at Carnival goers on Princess Margaret Drive on 6 September 2008 (sans detonation), Prime Minister Dean Barrow and the Police Department promised new operational and legislative measures "to deal with this grenade phenomenon".^{[n 7]}

The attack was followed by a second one with a British L109A1 grenade (from BATSUB) on 28 December 2009 on Kraal Road (corner with Haynes Street), resulting in the death of fourteen year old Rudolph Flowers, and injuries to two others.^{[n 8]} By 2017, sixteen grenades had been discovered and removed from Southside Belize City, with two of those having produced casualties.^[13]

The attack is remembered as the first mass casualty event via explosive device in the country's history (including military history).^{[n 9]} 7 News deemed it "an act of urban terror".^{[n 10]} News 5 called it "a watershed occurrence".^{[n 11]} Darren Trapp's mother, Sherette Jones, noted, "Belize is coming to an end".^[11] Amandala called it "a sudden plunge into a hellish dungeon of darkness", noting "the war out in the streets has taken on a new and uglier face".^[14] After a second grenade attack on 6 September 2008 (sans casualties), Prime Minister Dean Barrow noted "possession of a grenade or the facilitation of another’s possession of a grenade has to be seen now as a kind of urban terrorism".^[15] Leader of the Opposition John Briceno similarly condemned the violent behaviour and senseless killings.^[16]

The attack has been interpreted as an example of a gang seeking to outdo their rivals, with later grenade attacks seen as attempts by the latter to restore equilibrium.^[17] In an episode of Ross Kemp on Gangs (focussing on Belize City gangs; premiered in early September 2008), Ross Kemp noted, "in all my travels around the world, I've never seen a gang with this kind of hardware" when an alleged gangmember handed him a NATO hand grenade.^[18] Herbert Gayle, a UWI anthropologist who had been studying gang violence in Belize since 2004, cautioned that gangs might escalate to something deadlier than grenades, as they had from knives to guns and guns to grenades in years prior.^{[n 12]} A 2010 ABA report noted the attack "awakened Belizean society to its lack of knowledge about social violence and the lack of training in advanced research tools needed to study the problem of juvenile crime".^[19] The attack prompted Nelma Mortis (Ministry of Education) to collaborate with Gayle on a study of why so many urban youth engaged in gang violence, completed in 2010.^{[n 13]}

• List of gangs in Belize
• Crips–Bloods gang war – ongoing in Belize and elsewhere

• Investigating Gangs in Belize – 2008 Ross Kemp on Gangs episode, on YouTube