Haiti crisis: What to know about Jimmy Chérizier, the officer-turned-gangster trying to seize control of the country
Chérizier has likened himself to Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, even Robin Hood. He's also an admirer of Haitian dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier.
Jimmy Chérizier, the former Haitian police officer-turned-gangster leading the latest violent campaign to seize control of the country, is nicknamed “Barbeque.”
Chérizier insists it’s because his mother operated a fried chicken stand in the slums of Port-au-Prince.
But critics say it’s a moniker Chérizier earned after staging multiple massacres in the nation’s capital from 2018 to 2020 that, according to the United Nations, left dozens of people dead, many of whom were burned alive when their homes were deliberately torched.
Jimmy Cherizier in Port-au-Prince, on Oct. 22, 2021.Odelyn Joseph / AP file “I would never massacre people in the same social class as me,” Chérizier said in a 2019 interview with The Associated Press. "I was born next door to La Saline. I live in the ghetto. I know what ghetto life is."
But clad in what’s become his trademark bullet-proof vest, Chérizier has made it clear in more recent interviews that he's willing to shed a lot of blood to achieve his goals.
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