A jewelry store in Canela, Brazil was menaced by an unlikely robber this past Monday, May 25: a deaf, paralyzed teen with cerebral palsy. The remarkable footage circulating online this week shows a jewelry heist no Hollywood screenwriter could imagine, as the 19-year-old, wheelchair-bound subject holds the store clerk at gunpoint using his feet.
The employee told Brazilian news outlet Metrópoles that the unidentified suspect had been in the store for around 10 minutes before attempting the robbery. Customers and staff reportedly thought he was begging, with one guest giving the teen some money.
The 19-year-old wasn’t there to panhandle, however. Before long, the store employee says the suspect placed a note, scrawled on a sheet of paper, on the counter with his feet. According to the Daily Mail, the note read, in Portugese, “Hand over everything. Don’t raise attention.”
At first, the clerk says he thought the suspect was joking. “Then he pulled the gun out with his feet,” he told Metrópoles. “That pistol looked real.”
He said another man in the store saw the gun and called 911, and police reportedly arrived shortly thereafter and arrested the teen. They determined that the gun was fake, but the suspect also had a knife on him.
Police reportedly questioned the suspect with the assistance of a family member. He was later released from police custody, with city delegate Vladimir Medeiros noting that an investigation would be initiated.
“It must be considered that, given the elements initially brought to the police station, it would possibly be an impossible crime to be consummated,” Medeiros said according to the Mail, “especially if you considered the physical condition of the [person being] investigated, also due to the unlikelihood of escape.”
Meanwhile, Metrópoles reports that further investigation found that the suspect has a twin brother with no physical disabilities. The suspect’s sibling is currently serving a prison sentence for murder and attempted murder, says the outlet.
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