Police remove 4 guns from the streets; burglars steal 4 more

Police were out in force during the holidays and although they couldn’t stop many crimes, they were able to take several guns off the streets. While on mobile patrol on Boxing Day, cops managed to get their hands on three guns and over twenty bullets. On Sarstoon Street they found nineteen year old Winfield Dennison hiding an object which turned out to be a nine millimetre Smith and Wesson pistol loaded with eight rounds. Over on Queen Charlotte Street, police stopped and searched twenty year old Keon Swasey and on him found a similar firearm also with eight live rounds. The arrests continue at the corner of Mex Avenue and Neal Pen Road when police spotted a group of men inside a yard. When they noticed the police, one of them unsuccessfully tried to hide an object under an old sink. Police searched the area and discovered the item to be a point thirty-eight handgun with four rounds in its magazine and an additional three rounds of nine millimetre ammo. They promptly cuffed Tyson Ysaguirre and took him into custody. Ysaguirre, Swasey and Dennison have all been charged with Kept Firearm and Ammunition without License. But the arrests didn’t end there; the following day another unit was on patrol on Kut Avenue when they searched twenty-one year old Franklin Heusner. From Heusner, they removed a nine millimetre pistol and nine rounds of ammo. He has also been charged for the same offence.

While Belize City police were taking guns off the streets, all over the country criminals were just as busy getting their hands on more. According to Ernesto Franco of Belmopan, on Friday his pickup was parked on St. Paul Street in the San Martin area when someone removed his nine millimetre pistol from it. Up north in Orange Walk four good Samaritans were not so nice when they robbed Mario Alpuche of several items. Alpuche reported to police that on Wednesday he was parking his Suzuki Sidekick on Lover’s Lane when he ran into the drain and the young men helped him to get it out. Two days later, Alpuche noticed that a green knapsack he had on the front passenger seat was missing. The bag contained a Customs traffic book, a black Sig Sauer pistol with eight rounds in its magazine and a box of fifty nine millimetre bullets. On Christmas Eve, Evangelisto Solis reported to police that his August Pine Ridge home was burglarized. According to Solis, sometime between nine a.m. on December eighteenth and seven p.m. on December twenty-second, a thief or thieves gained entry to his home and stole his sixteen gauge shotgun. The following day, U.S. National Vincent Rose, a resident of Forest Home Village in the Toledo District reported that between four-thirty and eight p.m. on December twenty-fourth his home was also burglarized. Stolen were a point thirty-eight revolver and five accompanying bullets, as well as a point twenty-two rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition.