O.W. woman charged, challenges police account

In Orange Walk, Elvira Grant, the woman who we satirically referred to as Annie Oakley in last night’s newscast, has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of harm for her actions with a nine millimetre pistol on Sunday night. Today, Grant, who prefers to go by her married name of Bautista, called News 5 to request an apology for numerous errors she claims we made in last night’s report. While we agree with Bautista that some parts of the story may have been based on misinformation, we must point out that all our material for the story came directly from the daily police press release and subsequent discussions with officers. Be that as it may, according to Elvira, what precipitated the incident was an attack on her made by her sister, Elisa, at the business establishment that Elvira runs in the Trial Farm area of Orange Walk. That establishment, she points out, is a “cool spot” as opposed to a bar, as in Orange Walk vernacular a bar is synonymous with a brothel, while a cool spot is a place for good clean fun. With regard to Elvira’s gunplay, she tells us that she is in fact an expert shot, who did not “miss the mark” as alleged in our news story. The single bullet she fired was only a warning shot aimed high in the air and not at Elisa or her niece Claudia. After the gunshot, Elvira may have left the scene, but claims it was only to go directly to the police station where she filed a complaint against her assailants. Finally, Elvira assures us that her correct age is twenty-three and not twenty-four as we erroneously reported. Bautista’s trial date has been set for July twenty-fourth in Orange Walk Magistrate’s Court. Meanwhile, for those who are not familiar with the personage of Annie Oakley, she was a famous nineteenth century performer in Wild West shows, who was said to be the most accurate female shooter the world had ever seen. Her exploits were immortalized in the Broadway musical “Annie Get Your Gun”.