QUICK response and diligent work by ranks of ‘D’ Division on Friday resulted in the capture of four of six bandits, who had executed an armed robbery on a grocery shop at Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara (WCD).
Charges are expected to be laid this week as the police continue the hunt for the two other bandits.
The police also seized an illegal firearm and matching ammunition. According to a police report, at about 13:25hrs on Friday, four males entered the business operated by a mother and daughter and pretended to be customers.
Minutes after, two of the men whipped out firearms, relieved mother and daughter of their valuables, and as they fled the scene in a waiting Toyota Spacio motorcar, discharged several rounds in the air.
The matter was reported to the police and ranks promptly responded and intercepted the get-away car several villages east of Cornelia Ida, with only the driver, who hails from ‘D’ Field, Sophia.
Upon his arrest, he told the police that following the robbery, the bandits changed vehicles using one driven by another accomplice of theirs, and were headed towards the Demerara Harbour Bridge.
Other ranks were duly alerted, and as the bandits approached the ‘Bridge’ in the second getaway vehicle and saw that the police had set up a “road block” at the western end, they quickly sped south along the West Bank Public Road. But they only got as far as La Parfaite Harmonie, where the vehicle crashed into a concrete culvert.
At some point during the escape bid, the driver of that vehicle, who hails from Section ‘K’ Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara, was accidentally shot in his upper right arm by one of the four bandits. The latter, meanwhile, in their desperation to get across the Harbour Bridge at all costs, abandoned the injured driver and boarded separate passenger vehicles destined for Georgetown.
Two of them were eventually nabbed at the Harbour Bridge; one of them, who hails from Lamaha Park, Georgetown had in his possession an unlicensed firearm and five rounds.
According to the police, the gunman has since admitted to committing the crime, and to accidentally shooting the driver of the second getaway vehicle. He, too, is now in police custody, after being treated at the West Demerara Hospital and discharged.
Efforts are being made to have the other two suspects arrested. Both getaway cars have been seized, and investigations are progress.
Meanwhile, the businesswoman’s husband, who gave his name as “Robin”, told this publication that one of the robbers walked into the shop and ordered a phone card and an “XL” energy drink.
He said that no sooner had the bandit placed his order, than two others rushed in and shut the shop door behind them.
“One of the men placed a gun to my mother- in-law head and took her jewellery, and another rushed into the house and put a gun to my son’s temple,” Robin said. He explained that the child, who is about to write CXC, was in the middle of his studies.
“My daughter was saved the trauma because she was on the veranda,” Robin said, “but one of the bandits wanted to rip off my wife’s ear and bite off her finger to get the jewellery. She even told the bandit it was her married ring, but the bandit didn’t care.”
He told the Guyana Chronicle that one of the four men who have been arrested was the mastermind, and that he lives in the same Cornelia Ida, where the robbery took place.
Robin recalled seeing two of the three bandits who entered the premises with handguns. He said, too, that it was a businessman in the neighbourhood who raised the alarm, after noticing that the shop door was closed and a stranger was in the yard.