Freetown Drug Store is Hit in Spate of Armed Robberies

There has been a wave of armed robberies across the north side of Belize City over the past few days, with business establishments including restaurants and grocery stores being hit by thieves.  On Thursday night, gunmen entered Freetown Drug Store and relieved the proprietor of an undisclosed sum of cash before making good their escape.  The incident, like other cases of armed robberies this week, was also captured on surveillance camera.  Deputy Commissioner of Police Chester Williams addressed the spike in such crimes by reassuring residents and business owners that additional resources will be relocated to that area of the city.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations)

“I know that there was a robbery at the Freetown Drug Store last night and this morning, Mr. Acevedo, he’s supposed to come in by now to make that complaint and the police are investigating that matter.”

Reporter

“We have seen a rash of robberies on the north side; in terms of we’ve seen Midway, El Paso.  We’ve seen one in Ladyville, Zeta and now we have this one in the city.  Are you able to speak about that is there another…”

Chester Williams

“As a department, we are concerned about the increase of robberies on north side or Region Two area of Belize City and you would know that we have the ongoing ACT operation more intense in the ED-One area.  So there is always that issue as it relates to fluctuation where the crime would move over to other areas where the police presence is not so heavy and so I sat down yesterday with Mr. Moody and Mr. Mariano to discuss ways and means on how we could address the robberies situation on ED-Two.  So I can tell the people on this side of the city that they will be seeing increased police activities.  We’ll try to see if we can move some other resources over to this side to be able to stem the occurrence of those incidents.”