Surveillance tape offers a clue in killing

Officials hope someone will recognize the man who shot Sissay Dagnew Belete at his Tampa store.

By ANGELA MOORE

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 2, 2001

TAMPA -- It's a grainy, black-and-white image taken just moments after Sissay Dagnew Belete, 40, was fatally shot. A dying Belete lies behind the counter where he usually stands in the store he owns.

In the foreground is the face of one of them men who killed him, detectives say. They're hoping that someone out there knows who he is, where he is and who helped him pull off the New Year's Eve robbery at Rainbow Food Place that left Belete dead and his 27-year-old employee, Bizuneh Bizuneh, injured from a gunshot wound to his hand.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Rod Reder said two men armed with handguns came into the store at 6201 N 43rd St. about 7:40 p.m. Sunday. No customers were inside the store at the time, but detectives were able to glean a lot of information from the store's surveillance tapes, Reder said.

The men demanded money and made Belete sit down behind the counter. He didn't resist and obeyed their demands, Reder said, but then they coldly pointed their guns at his chest.

"The two gunmen leaned over the counter and apparently opened fire," Reder said. They shot Belete several times and then chased Bizuneh into a back room and shot him in the hand before they left the store.

Like Bizuneh, Belete was an Ethiopian immigrant. He employed several family members and other area Ethiopians who are part of a tight-knit community. On Monday, at least two dozen people gathered at the Belete home in the North Pointe subdivision just off Fletcher Avenue to comfort his wife, Amsal Alemu, and their three children, the oldest of whom is only 4 years old.

Goshu Gebru had been Belete's close friend for 25 years, ever since the two were young in Ethiopia.

"He traveled 15,000 miles to America just to get democracy," Gebru said, red-eyed from crying. Belete worked nearly 24 hours a day, Gebru said, trying to build a better life for his family. His two stores were in high-crime areas.

"He thinks people are just like he is," Gebru said. "He had a good heart and assumes everyone is like him. But they aren't."

Belete's family will take his body back to Ethiopia to be buried. After that, Gebru worries about what will happen to Belete's family. His wife came to the United States five years ago and depended on her husband for everything.

As for his friend's killers, Gebru hopes that someone comes forward.

"These people, if we don't bring them to justice, they're going to continue to kill innocent people," Gebru said. "If we don't bring them to justice, no one is safe."

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