Landlord shot as he collects rent

Forty-one year old Marconi Leal is lucky to be alive after he was shot in the chest around ten on Monday night. The shooting occurred just as Leal was collecting rent in the amount of two thousand dollars from a tenant on Cemetery Road. But who would have known other than the tenant and landlord that such a transaction would be taking place? That’s a question Belize City police are trying to answer. According to Leal, he had just received the money and was writing a receipt, when two masked men approached him. Leal says one of the men hit him in the head with a handgun and stole the cash. But Leal reports that he began to struggle with his assailants and that is when one of them fired a shot that caught him in the chest. The robbers, with the rent money in hand, then grabbed Leal’s gold chain valued at six hundred dollars and ran away. Leal was treated at the KHMH and Belize Medical Associates for his injury and was released this morning. Police have since detained one person in connection with the incident, which they believe may have been a setup.