In the early morning hours of Thursday, December 9, six male persons were detained in connection with the disappearance of keys to one of the San Pedro Police Department’s pickup trucks.
At about 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 9, three police officers visited BC’s Bar in regards to a complaint of noise that was given by a resident of the area. Police asked for the bar’s customers to vacate the premises and then proceeded to Hurricane’s Bar to give the same order.
Returning to their pickup truck the Police Officers noticed that the keys to the truck were missing, after they had left them on the ignition. One person on the scene told Ambergris Today that he and two of his friends assisted the officers in the search for the key, but to no avail.
According to ASP Dennis Arnold, Officer in Charge of the San Pedro Police Department, after their search and investigation, the three officers had reason to believe that a couple of young men who were at the bar were responsible for the missing keys, thus they detained a party of six men who were in the group for questioning only.
“I received two anonymous calls to my office positively identifying two men of the group for having taken the keys from the Police truck,” stated ASP Arnold to Ambergris Today. “The two persons identified have had run-ins with the law and I know that the other gentlemen are respectable citizens with no records. Thus I was ready to give the order for these two gentlemen to be charged for theft and mischievous conduct.”
But after talks with the young men’s parents and relatives, ASP Arnold decided not to press charges in this case which he describes as petty and insignificant to waste too much time on. “The relatives of the young men offered to pay the cost of getting replacement keys, so with that gesture I decided to drop the charges and let them go. We never pressured them into paying for the replacement keys,” stated ASP Arnold. The six detainees were released just before midday.
As for the reports on of police brutality with two of the young men detained, ASP Arnold said that those were allegations from the parents and that his department would look closely into that matter. The Police Officer who left the truck keys in the car and consequently lost them will also be reprimanded for his negligence.
“Public pressure will never work with the San Pedro Police Department,” concluded ASP Arnold. “The department will always take the due time to process any case and there will be no preferences taken on anybody. But I do applaud on the unity and efforts of the parents, relatives and friends of these gentlemen who came forth helping in every way with this case. I would like to encourage residents to get involved in this same way with other cases as many times it is with their help that we can catch criminals and solve cases.”
