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Today, the Police Commander of Rural Eastern Division, Senior Superintendent Edward Broaster, briefed the press on the information that they have at this time.

Sr. Sup. Edward Broaster, O. C. Eastern Rural
"We had a robbery at the Tropical Butterfly area at mile 29 on the George Price Highway, where one Steven Temple, 75 years old and one Cynthia Fedricks, 65 years old were robbed by two dark-skin male persons. As a result of that one Jorge Lopez who was coming in his red pickup attempted to render assistance and he was shot, not before he inflicted a chop wound to one of the suspects who is at the KHMH under police guard at this time. Our investigation is ongoing right now and more than likely we will have the suspect who is at the hospital charge for robbery, aggravated assault and what have you."

Reporter
"Can you discuss the name of that person at this time, given the fact that he was caught in the act?"

Sr. Sup. Edward Broaster, O. C. Eastern Rural
"He was not caught in the act. We caught him after the incident. We are yet to conduct ID parade and all of that. So I will not release his name at this time."

Reporter
"Is he known to the police as for previous criminal activities?"

Sr. Sup. Edward Broaster, O. C. Eastern Rural
"I'm not quite sure if he is known to the Hattieville Police."

That armed assailant remains at the hospital under police guard at this time, and as soon as police bring charges against him, we'll show you who he is.

So, back to the robbery, what exactly happened at the Tropical Education Center? That's what our news team went in search of this evening, and we spoke with the Zoo's Operations Manager about the incident. He told us that since they opened the Center in the 90's, an armed assault like this has never happened before:

Celso Poot, Operations Manager - Belize Zoo
"A little after 4pm yesterday evening, two of our guests staying in one of the guest houses came over to the office and reported to the manager working at that time that they were just robbed at the guest house. Apparently, two mask men entered their house and held them at gun point and robbed them of their personal belongings. The Canadian woman had just come out of the house to take a photograph of the crocodile and while she was getting ready to take the photograph she was held up by one of the men with a gun and told not to make any noise and then took them in the house and lock them up in the bathroom and then went through their personal belongings."

"They were just told to stay inside the house, that they had a getaway car and of they move they will get shot and so the guests complied."

Daniel Ortiz
"It's a very unfortunate incident. Can you tell us what are the guests saying at this time or what did they say about the experience? Of course it's not something anyone wants to experience. But did they blame anyone in Belize because of what happened?"

Celso Poot, Operations Manager - Belize Zoo
"It's so unfortunate that the incident happened. They are aware of the current crime situation in Belize. They've read about it. They are very familiar with the current situation in Belize. It's unfortunate that they became one of the statistics for such crimes. They are doing well. Actually, we evacuate them last night and took them to a place because they really wanted to leave the premises."

"Since 1994 when we open over here we've never had any incidents like this or close to it. It's the first time we are experiencing something. We do have security in place and what we are now doing is we've revisited our security operations and we are now going to make some improvements. I means this incident happened between 3pm -3:30pm yesterday. So it's broad daylight."

And just a few minutes before news time, our Daniel Ortiz spoke with Jorge Lopez, the man who these armed thieves shot to get his vehicle.

Lopez was driving through that location to go visit his father. He just happened to be the first vehicle they saw after they had only just robbed the Canadians of their belongings. They blocked his path on this road which leads to the back entrance of the Tropical Education Center, and when he stopped, the pulled the gun on him. They shot him in the abdomen, and he fell to the ground

When he realized what was happening, the gunman pointed the weapon at his head but it jammed. He used that distraction to pull a machete which he then used chop his shooter on the shoulder.

The other man picked up a big rock to try to bash him in the head, but he managed to fend both assailants. They jumped into his vehicle and drove away, leaving him to bleed out on the highway. Fortunately, he managed to get help, and he was transported to the Belize Health Care Partners Hospital.

A few minutes before the start of news, we spoke to Lopez about the terrifying experience while he was on his hospital bed. He is fluent only in Spanish, and so here's a short excerpt of his interview unedited:

We'll revisit his full interview with the translation for our English viewers tomorrow.