7 News Belize

Pair Of Cayo Robbers Killed
posted (July 1, 2013)
On Saturday night in Santa Elena town, a security guard shot and killed two armed robbers. This comes 3 months after police shot and killed two robbers in Santa Elena, and six weeks after robbers killed a security Guard in San Ignacio. With those precedents, guns were on the ready – and this time, it resulted in two dead robbers, cousins, part of a trio who allegedly tried to disarm the security guard so they could rob the place.

Our News team has been following the story since Saturday night, and Daniel Ortiz has this report.

Daniel Ortiz reporting
Our camera arrived 5 minutes after police finished their crime scene processing, and 2 hours after 2 men were shot to death on the premises of Anna's Supermarket on Saturday Night.

By that time, the Chinese owners of the store were already cleaning up the blood left on their pavement, where the men were gunned down. They labored to remove visible traces of the crime which almost committed against them.

When they were satisfied that they could do no more, they pulled their shutters down, as if they were anxiously trying to segregate themselves the terror of what happened and almost happened.

And it looked almost as if it never occurred, but the scarlet light thrown on the puddle served only to remind that the blood of 2 alleged robbers were spilled right on the doorsteps of the business place.

We arrived too late, but the images captured by our colleagues at the Star Newspaper gave a clear idea of how the incident unfolded.

Residents of San Ignacio told us that 3 armed men tried to rob the store at around 9 a.m., but they met the security guard on duty who shot 2 of them in the act. 1 was able to get away.'

That version of how the incident unfolded is somewhat supported by this image, where if you look closely to the center of your screen and then a little to the left, you may see a machete strewn on the ground beside the man in red.

But, is that how the incident unfolded? We asked San Ignacio police to explain their preliminary findings to us.

According to investigators, the security guard reported that he was doing his duties when the men, who were armed and wearing masks, pointed a gun at his chest and ordered that he hand over his weapon.

He knocked the man's gun away, but the assailant managed to get a shot off, which caught him in the left arm. The guard then pulled his .38 revolver shot the man in the neck. Immediately after, another of the assailants rushed him in an attempt to chop him, but the guard shot him in the middle of the forehead, killing him.

The third assailant chased him with a machete, but the guard managed to run away and get into a taxi which took him to the hospital.

Police recovered a loaded 9 mm pistol and a machete on the bodies of both men, who were later identified as 20 year-old Isvi Hoil, and his cousin, 25 year-old Aaron Hoil.

Today, we got a chance to catch up with Isvi Hoil's aunt, where she answered those tough questions for us:

Daniel Ortiz
"We know it's difficult and we don't want to upset you in any kind of way but we understand that they attempted to rob the place. Is that the information the the police has given you all?"

Carolina Gomez - Aunt of Deceased
"Yes, apparently they were going to rob at the Chinese store and I think they fired a shot or something like that - we don't have exact information because we weren't there."

Reporter
"Do you have any doubts about what the police is saying or it might have gone a different way from what they're saying?"

Carolina Gomez
"Well, no because like how I said, we weren't there so we can't say; we just hear what the people are saying and what the police told us."

Reporter
"He lived here with his father - how is his father taking the news?"

Carolina Gomez
"Well it's very hard because it's his son, he is taking hard because he was the oldest one from the children that they had."

And in the same way the family accepts that it may have gone how the security guard reported it, they accept that these men could have been capable of armed robbery.

Carolina Gomez
"This was a shock for us because we didn't have any that this was going to happen."

Reporter
"What type of person was your nephew?"

Carolina Gomez
"Well for us as family, he was a kind person and he didn't look for trouble or nothing like that. But you know we as parents sometimes our children are something in front of us and behind our backs we don't know what kind of children they are."

The security guard is currently receiving treatment for the gunshot wound at the San Ignacio Community Hospital, and he is under police guard because police continue to investigate the double homicide.

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