According to police, at around 1 p.m. on January 27, Dawson and Gonzalez went to Benny's Home Center at 2½ miles on the Northern Highway and presented identification cards which said that they were in possession of a legitimate gun license to the store manager. They were attempting to purchase 9mm pistols, which should have been standard procedure for a gun license holder. The problem arose when the manager asked them to produce the approval letter from the commissioner of police which is an extra requirement, according to the police press office.

When the men couldn't produce the letter, the manager called the police who arrested Dawson and Gonzalez. They were charged with uttering upon a false document.

Dawson, who was represented by attorney Arthur Saldivar, appeared in Court # 5 before Magistrate Hettie May Stuart. No plea was taken because the matter will be treated as an indictable one. The prosecution objected to bail on the grounds of the serious and brazen nature of the offense and that Dawson is a flight risk. Attorney Arthur Saldivar urged that bail be granted because the identification card which was presented by Dawson to the firearms merchant was not forged, and could only be issued by Police. He submitted that the card is only printed at the Belmopan Headquarters. He even included that as an added proof, the identification card had the signature of the commissioner of police, which, again, also makes it legitimate.

After hearing from both the prosecution and the defense, Magistrate Stuart remanded Dawson into custody until February 27. Gonzalez was then taken into court #5 also, but almost immediately, as he was to be read his charge, Saldivar, who is one of his two attorneys, submitted to the court that Gonzalez's hearing be done before another magistrate. As a result, the matter was re-assigned to court #4, before Magistrate Robert Ordonez.

Gonzalez's attorneys, Anthony Sylvester and Arthur Saldivar, argued the same exact points before Magistrate Ordonez. They were able to convince the magistrate to grant him bail, which he was able to meet this afternoon. They cited that, in the section of the criminal code which governs the false documents law, gun licenses are not listed as one of the documents upon which can utter falsely. This morning, constable Jimenez - who allegedly gave them the license - was arraigned in Belmopan Magistrate's Court, before Senior Magistrate, Linsbert Willis. He was charged with a single charge of forgery of an official document for the Belize Police Department gun license identification cards in the names of Alwin Gonzalez and Answorth Dawson.

Since the matter is an indictable offense, no plea was taken from him in court, and bail was offered to him in the sum of $5,000 plus one surety of the same which he met.