… While Belize City security guard accused in hold-up

In crime news from the old capital, a security guard is behind bars tonight, accused of trying to rob a teenager at gunpoint. According to the nineteen year old Jarrett Jones, around eight on Sunday night he was walking on the Western Highway towards its junction with Vernon Street when two masked men on bicycles approached him. Jones says one of the assailants took out a handgun and pointed it at him. But before the gunman could make his demands, Jones knocked the weapon away, pushed the attacker to the ground and made a run for it. The student says he met a police mobile patrol on Vernon Street and returned to the scene of the crime with the officers to look for the perpetrators. Cops spotted two suspects on Cemetery Road but before they could be detained, one of the men escaped. Investigators say when they searched twenty-eight year old security guard Richard Smith, they found a thirty-eight revolver, five rounds of nine millimetre ammo and a stocking mask. As a result of the find, Smith has been charged with Aggravated Assault and Possession of an Unlicensed Firearm and Ammunition. The accused pled not guilty to the charges when he appeared in Belize City Magistrate’s Court this morning and has been remanded to prison until June twenty-sixth. Smith’s alleged accomplice is still at large.