Video camera foils robbery at pizza parlour

Four young Belizeans are behind bars tonight after their Saturday afternoon robbery of a popular Belize City pizza parlour was foiled by a video camera. Twenty year old Shannon Avila; Vallan Avila, twenty-one; eighteen year old Allan Guzman; and a fourteen year old minor were today charged in Magistrate’s court with robbery and abetment to robbery. Juliana Westby, an employee of Pepper’s Pizza on St. Thomas Street told police that around two p.m. a teenager came in and ordered a pizza and went back out again. Three other youths then entered, one of whom pulled out a black handgun and put it to her head while the two others removed her waist bag containing four hundred and twenty dollars. They then joined their companion and all four rode off on bicycles. It would have been just another unsolved robbery were it not for the surveillance tape that picked up the whole episode. When police officers reviewed it, they had no trouble rounding up their suspects, as well as the toy gun they believe was used in the hold-up. When the four appeared before Magistrate Earl Jones the minor immediately pleaded guilty. When the Magistrate asked him if he was sure of his plea, he responded that he was, because that’s what one of the police officers told him to do. Once informed that a police officer’s advice was not particularly impartial, the teenager–along with his three co-defendants–pleaded not guilty. Under the Crimes Control Act any offence involving a firearm–even a fake one–will not allow bail to be granted for at least ninety days. All four defendants were remanded to Hattieville Prison until August eighteenth.