Four Armed Thieves Restrain and Rob Mennonite Brothers
While most people were wrapping up the long Indigenous People’s holiday weekend on Monday evening, brothers, Jericho and Aaron Pershing were enduring a horrific experience at the hands of four armed thieves. The brothers were ambushed by the robbers, who proceeded on foot along the Agua Viva gravel road to the Mennonite community, where they bound and beat the two brothers and robbed them, taking a vehicle in the process. But the community responded soon after the brothers were able to free themselves and seek help and, after tracking down the stolen vehicle, shooting at it, the thief crashed it into a tree and fled. His partners in crime had all ran off even before he drove off with the vehicle from the compound. News Five’s Marion Ali has the story in the following report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Brothers, Jericho and Aaron Pershing were fixing a broken pipe here outside their place of business at Pershing Windows, located about four miles in on the Agua Viva Road around seven on Monday night. That was when four gunmen pounced on them, bound them with duct tape, and proceeded to rob them of their cell phones and money. In the process, the thieves also took away the key to this black Toyota Hilux that was parked in the yard. The neighbour told News Five that he was awakened around eight-thirty by the two traumatized brothers seeking help, still with duct tape on them.
Voice of: Neighbour
Voice of: Neighbour
“It was around 8:30 when I just heard banging on my door. I opened my door, my window actually, so I saw one of the guys here hollering for help. He said he just got robbed and so I ran out and he told me to get anything that I could. I ran out and and then he still had some zip ties and duct tape around him, his neck, his legs and arms.”
The Pershings told the family what had just happened.
Voice of: Neighbour
“He saw that two of them had what appeared to be a shotgun and the other like maybe some kind of 9mm or something. So they pulled them out and tied them down there. Two of them stayed there and they demanded their money and keys and phones and everything. And two of them (the thieves) came in to the yard and they just unhitched the trailer from the truck and just drove off – the one driver with the truck.”
When the thief in the Hilux sped off after his comrades unhitched the truck from the trailer it was attached to, the others ran off into the darkness. Our source said that the other neighbours, having learned what had just happened, went with the Pershings in the opposite direction to seek help, but before they could find help, they caught up with the thief in the stolen truck and took action.
Voice of: Neighbour
“We went like the opposite direction from the vehicle to ask for help, right? So, when we were coming back, then one of the guys that I was with, he had a 22 rifle. So, at that time the vehicle had swung back, and then the guy just pulled and shot at the vehicle, their vehicle, right, so that guy must have dodged or something the bullets because, right like maybe 50 feet ahead, we found the vehicle crashed.”
This was the first time that the Pershings had been robbed, but what happened after reminded the neighbor of concerns other residents in the area had been complaining about for a while.
Voice of: Neighbour
“The neighbors, like around after 11 o’clock in the night, they still heard people running around from the bushes. They have been telling us that there is some guys always sitting around like on a tree or something like that.”
Marion Ali
“Oh, looking?”
Voice of: Neighbour
“Yeah, looking at – they’re, I don’t know – they’re just seeing what they can find.”
The residents of the area are hoping that the police will find who beat and robbed the Pershing brothers, but the assailants wore masks.
Voice of: Neighbour
“They were masked. The cameras showed them and they were masked and they were – they knew what they were doing. They didn’t push the gate with their hand. They pushed it with their arm, and the one driver, when he got out of the truck, you could see where he was leaning onto the truck, and he was being careful that he doesn’t leave tracks on there, because you can only see his palm. You can only see his palm around there, not his fingerprints.”
According to our source, the robbers spoke Creole and had no pronounced accents. The entrance to the Agua Viva Road is located about three miles past Belmopan and about four or five miles before Armenia Village. Marion Ali for News Five.
