Cayo taxi man may have unknowingly driven highway bandits
Authorities on both sides of the Belize-Guatemala border continue their search for a group of armed bandits who terrorized motorists along the Hummingbird Highway last Saturday. Local intelligence gathering mechanisms are operating at maximum overdrive, and authorities say it is only a matter of time before the suspects are hauled in. Earlier this week, a News Five investigation took us to Benque Viejo del Carmen, where a taxi driver may have unknowingly been used by the robbers to transport them to their destination.
Four days after the Hummingbird Highway robbery, the police apparently have picked one man they believe could assist them in their investigation. According to reports reaching News Five, on Sunday, May third, the day after the armed hold up, Cayo Police took into custody forty year old Scott Coleman, a part time taxi driver of Benque Viejo Del Carmen. Coleman, it is reported picked up seven Spanish men, whom police suspect were the robbers and dropped them off just outside of Las Flores, a half a mile away from where the holdup took place. But while the authorities suspect that Coleman may be privy to some crucial information, Coleman’s family contend that their brother is innocent and was just doing his job – dropping off passengers to their destination.
Ronald Coleman, Brother
“Yes, I know that he is innocent, because he does not know what is going on. He is just like anybody who run taxi. It can happen to anybody who run taxi, you see. So I think he is innocent.”
Ronald Coleman says after his brother dropped off the men, he returned to Benque and briefly told him about his trip.
Ronald Coleman
“Well, according to what he told me, that he was in his time. He work at WASA and on Saturday and Sunday time, he run taxi and this Saturday morning, these guys come and ask him for a trip. So I understand he carry that trip to Belmopan and then they no want to stay in Belmopan because of the police, so he carry it more further to Las Flores and he just left them and come back to Benque and continue running taxi.”
Coleman said his brother got to know about the job through two other taxi men, whom he say police first picked up and then later released after they told the police that it was Coleman who drove the men to Las Flores. The men apparently were picked up in Benque shortly after seven that Saturday morning.
Q: “When he came back, did he say if these even men were acting strange and if he was concerned as he took them up to Belmopan?”
Ronald Coleman
“No he don’t told us. He told us that they look like any normal people trying to find a job. That’s what he told us.”
Q: “And he didn’t even mention that he got even more concerned when the guys mention, don’t drop us off in Belmopan because the police are there?”
Ronald Coleman
“No he didn’t tell us nothing. Because they didn’t take luggage, not even a bag, just by themselves. So he think they already know the place and maybe sake of police, they don’t want to stay at the junction because the police might catch them.”
Q: “And nobody was at Las Flores waiting for the guys?”
Ronald Coleman
“Nobody.”
According to Coleman’s other brother, Errol when his brother returned home, the car apparently was giving trouble and that’s what he was looking after, when he was taken in by police. Two days after Coleman was taken into custody, his brother Ronald said as he made his way towards San Ignacio in his brother’s car the police pulled up from behind and ordered him to take the vehicle into San Ignacio Police Station.
Ronald Coleman
“I was running the car to San Ignacio to an electrician because it got an electric problem, but in the middle of the road or the middle from here, from Benque to Cayo, the police stop me and they took off my license and they say that that was the car they were looking for, because they say that that’s the license plate, 1461. So they just take off my license and make I run to the station and when I reached at the station, they just give me back my license and say make you go. So I am asking them why, what happen to the car. They say the car has to stay with them because they have to do investigation.”
The Coleman family say while they understand the police need to do their investigation, they are concerned about their brother’s safety and say the police have not been helpful in giving them any information pertaining to the welfare of Scott Coleman.
Ronald Coleman
“Where he is, and where they have him because we really want to know about him. For all we gone to San Ignacio, way to Belmopan and we can’t find him. They don’t have no answer for us, they don’t know nothing about it. So that’s why we are worried about him and we are trying to do our best to know what is happening and to know what is going on.”
Scott Coleman was today released without charges. Meanwhile the police have established a special twenty foer hour hotline to accept information on Saturday’s Hummingbird Highway robbery. The telephone number is (08) 23865.
