Shopkeeper fights back, robber shot

It happens every once in a while, probably not often enough. That is, when an armed robber gets a taste of his own medicine…when the hunter becomes the hunted. Jacqueline Woods reports on what was definitely not your usual Belize City shootout.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

This afternoon security was tight in front of Tong’s Store at 28-A Baymen Avenue. Around 1:30 p.m. a man, identified as twenty-three year old Ursilo Mendoza, entered the establishment. Mendoza, allegedly was armed with a revolver, attempted to hold up the business owner and employees, but instead received a bullet to the chest.

G. Michael Reid, Police Press Officer

“One of the guys in the store pulled a licensed firearm and shot the guy. The guy had a .380 revolver. As far as we understand, it was loaded about thirteen rounds of ammunition. So far this is all we know. It is in the preliminary stage of investigation and we certainly will let you know whatever comes up later on.”

Witnesses in the area told News 5 that after Mendoza was shot, he ran onto the back veranda of a neighbour’s house on St. Joseph Street. That neighbour, who did not wish to appear on camera, says when she first saw the young man, he was bleeding from his chest and mouth.

Neighbour

“Well I sit down on the veranda and I saw a boy passed and he is holding here and he was under blood. So I told him, boy you got shot, I said go dah hospital. Well he ran around the lane and when he ran around the lane, I think when two boys passed they asked where the boy that just ran around here gone. So I told them that he went around the lane.”

But blood stains on the neighbour’s back railing and door, suggest that Mendoza made his way up the neighbour’s back steps and onto her veranda where it is reported he banged on the door for someone to help him.

Neighbour

“I never know. My neighbour tell me how that it is on the back veranda that I work. And when I opened the door and look back, the whole veranda bloody up.”

Sources tell News 5 that a vehicle passed by the house, picked up Mendoza and took him to the hospital.

Jacqueline Woods

“We understand that two or three individuals may be involved in this incident?”

G. Michael Reid

“Well we know of one person for sure and this person happens to be in the hospital at this point. The police have him under guard.”

C.I.B. secured the scene to collect whatever evidence they could in the incident. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.

According to hospital authorities, Mendoza received a bullet wound to the right upper chest. He remains in a critical, but stable condition at the K.H.M.H. Police tell News 5 that this is not the first time that Mendoza has been in trouble with the law.