Mar 5, 2021
Ruth Ferguson
Justice Westmin James will make a ruling on a date to be set in May in a civil suit for negligence against the Belize Police Department and the government. This is for the death of Stella Maris school teacher, Ruth Ferguson back in 2018. On Thursday, the claimants and the respondents in the case made their submissions to the judge. The family, through their attorney, Anthony Sylvestre, is seeking damages for wrongful death at the hands of police. Ruth Ferguson was at school in November 2018 when two officers attempted to take her to court on a committal warrant for failing to pay an outstanding balance on a loan. The warrant meant that she would be automatically transported to the Belize Central Prison if she could not make a payment. Ferguson began to have breathing complications, but it is alleged the officers ignored her plea for medical assistance. She was finally rushed to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, but had a massive heart attack and died about an hour later. The mother of one was thirty-five years old at the time, had at least twenty more employable years ahead of her, using the pensionable age of fifty-five. The family is seeking damages for loss of income for those years.