HOLDUPS AT STRIPES LINKED TO GUN STOLEN D'TOWN

By Juan Montoya

The Brownsville Police Department is hot on the trail of two men who broke into a car downtown parked Sunday night near the corner of 12th and Washington streets and made off with – among other items – a handgun found in one of the cars.

They were identified as Edxion Mata Gonzalez (19) (top picture) and Hector Zarate (22) (bottom).

Gonzalez has two warrants for Aggravated Robbery and Zarate has a warrant for Burglary of Motor Vehicle. Gonzalez is believed to later have committed the two robberies of Stripes convenience stores using the same handgun.

Unofficially, police department sources say the weapon stolen may have belonged to a local elected official, but this could not be confirmed from the police report.

Sources say they fear retribution on the victims of the break-ins should their identity become known to the criminals. The weapon was said to have been legally registered to its owner.

Police say that they have identified one of the  two men as a result of surveillance cameras set up in a nearby business and that the same two men have been caught on cameras robbing at least two stripes stores.

"They know who they are," said a police source. "It's just a matter of time before they are caught."

The same police source says the two men were stopped for a "stop and talk" after a police officer got suspicious. The source said one of the men gave them a false identity and another didn't.

"They know who one of them is and they are trying to identify the other one. They many have been known to police already."

The ability to identify the men was made easier by the existence of surveillance cameras at the place the men broke into the cars along Washington Street and at the Stripes stores Mata held up.

This brought into focus the efforts by the City's Health Dept. to install cameras in various places where people are known to litter illegally around the city.

Health Department Director Art Rodriguez went before the city commission last Tuesday to request approval of cameras from the Plastic Bag fund set up by the city to stop the use of the bangs in the city.

Commissioner Cesar de Leon urged Rodriguez to confer with police and advocates of the setting up of surveillance cameras downtown to join forces to acquire cameras that will cover large portions of the areas affected by criminal activity to make the effort more efficient.

Advocates for the installation of cameras downtown say that if no cameras had been in place, the identity of the men who broke into the cars may have never been know. They hope that the police will have the criminals in hand soon.