Three dead in Melchor shootout
It’s technically part of Guatemala but the area just over the border in Melchor de Mencos is pretty loose as far as official formalities go. It also seems pretty loose when it comes to observance of the law, and there are three dead bodies at the morgue to prove it. Patrick Jones is just back from out west and has a strange tale to tell.
Saturday night’s shooting at the “La Cueva del General” restaurant, just beyond the Belize/Guatemala border has left the Gonzalez family as well as police in both countries, scratching their heads and asking “why?”.
Cesar Gonzalez, Brother of Deceased
“I still cannot understand, nor want to think about the incident. Those who murdered my brother are my own cousins. We are going through a difficult time. It is very strange to understand what happened, but that’s the irony of life. In an instant, Melchor de Mencos turned into what we would call “the Wild West”. The saddest part, my brother took it, his brother in law, Walter Rosales and the officer in charge of the police.”
According to Jose Umberto Gonzalez Junior, who witnessed his father being shot to death, the incident, which also left two other people dead, all started when Jose Gonzalez Senior refused to sell one of his nephews a beer.
Jose Umberto Gonzalez Jr., Eye Witness
“Only because my father didn’t want to drink a beer and because he them saw the policeman, he said, you called the police, you fool, then he shot him. Nestor shot my uncle Walter with the white gun, then they fired at the policeman.”
Police in Melchor say the brothers, Elder and Nestor Alvarez, after shooting their uncle, made it across a nearby bridge and were trying to get away with a car that was parked in front of the “Flor de las Primavera” restaurant. When the owner Walter Cocom came out to investigate, he too was gunned down, just a couple of feet from the police station.
Cesar Gonzalez
“The incident took place beside the Immigration Office on the Guatemalan side. My brother had his restaurant just before crossing the bridge. He was shot and killed in his own restaurant. Then the assailants crossed over the bridge where they also murdered Walter, just in front of the military barracks.”
As the Alvarez brothers fled the scene of the second shooting, they ran into a police patrol. An exchange of gunfire then followed. The barrage of bullets was abruptly ended when one of the gunmen tossed a grenade, badly wounding the police chief. But as he fell, the chief fatally wounded eighteen year old Elder Alvarez. According to the officer in charge of the Benque police, Assistant Inspector Mark Flowers, though the incident happened on Guatemalan soil, the close proximity to the border was reason enough for him to offer assistance.
A.I.P. Mark Flowers, O.C., Benque Police
“This is another reason for our involvement in the investigation because of the proximity where the incident occurred. It certainly happened in Guatemalan land, which is right beyond the immigration checkpoint in Guatemala, which makes it Guatemala where the incident happened, but because of where it happened in relation to where we sit we are interested in seeing the investigation coming through. So certainly we looked at it along those lines and saw it fitting for us to get involved in the investigation.”
Except for the grenade, the bullet riddled police vehicle in Melchor and the gunmen’s use of nine millimeter weapons in the shooting spree bear startling resemblance to the May second Hummingbird Highway robbery and murder. Police in Melchor and Benque, however, along with the Gonzalez family, believe that it was just a family dispute gone terribly wrong. Patrick Jones, for News Five.
Nineteen-year-old Nestor Alvarez was today charged with murder in Melchor and additional charges may come later as Police Chief Carlos Sanchez is reported to be in critical condition in a Guatemalan hospital. Melchor police say the Alvarez brothers, who had been staying with the Gonzalez family for the last fifteen days, were on their way to Mexico.
