Shirley Thomas

THIRTY-NINE-year-old shopkeeper Mark Rodney, of Section “D” South Turkeyen, in South Sophia, is currently warded at the Georgetown Public Hospital, nursing severe chop wounds about the body after being viciously attacked by a man outside the Stabroek Police Outpost on Monday night.

Rodney, who vends on Commerce Street Georgetown, was late yesterday in theatre undergoing an operation. Relatives recall that, moments before the chopping incident, Mark and his assailant’s mother had turned up at the Police Outpost, each claiming that the other had verbally abused them.

As Rodney was exiting the Stabroek Police Outpost, a man, said to be the woman’s son, allegedly pounced on him at the foot of the stairs and started chopping him. He sustained several wounds to the head, on both hands, and to the fingers. Persons who claimed they witnessed the attack said that when the man began to chop Rodney, two young male police ranks on duty in the outpost panicked and ‘dived for cover’, retreating deeper into the building; but as the victim began crying out for help, another policeman – a plain clothes rank — fired three warning shots in the air, at which point the knife-wielding man ran away.

The plainclothes cop hotly pursued Rodney’s assailant, apprehended him and took him to a police station.
Police investigations are continuing.