“R.P.G.” taken by police is a dud

On yesterday’s newscast we ran a story of a major new weapon to appear on the Belizean crime scene…fortunately, one that was turned in to police. Well, we are no experts on military technology…and it appears that neither are the cops. Today, a high ranking member of the Belize Defence Force called News 5 to explain that the weapon displayed yesterday at the Queen Street Police Station, described to the press as a rocket propelled grenade launcher, was in fact a useless piece of junk. According to our source, the lethal looking tube shown on television was part of a sixty-six-millimetre weapon used by both the British and B.D.F. That rocket launcher, a shoulder fired armament used against non-armoured targets, is indeed lethal…but we are told that the rocket and tube come as a single disposable unit. That is, once the rocket has been fired, the tube is discarded; it cannot be used again. Usually, after firing on the practice range, the tubes are collected and burned…but in this case it appears that one or more may have fallen into the hands of enterprising scavengers. It is not known what negotiations or payments may have been involved in turning the fake firepower in to police, but it seems that if the tube’s owners are ever prosecuted, it will be for fraud…not possession of illegal weaponry.