…policeman injured in Norton St shootout
…as cops respond to robbery at home of construction worker
In its continued fight against crime police Thursday night confronted and killed three armed bandits in a fierce two-hour-long gun battle on Norton Street, Lodge, Georgetown, during which a policeman, Clive Clarke was also shot and injured.

Two of the dead bandits have been identified as Junior Nurse and Shawn Browne (jnr); the third was unidentified up to press time. Browne (jnr) is allegedly the son of the late notorious criminal Shawn Browne, who was among several dangerous criminals who were involved in the brutal crime wave following the 2002 Camp Street jail break.
The shootout stemmed from a robbery where the bandits invaded the home of a family, but were holed up in the house as a police patrol was summoned and responded promptly on the scene. Thursday night’s killing comes two weeks after police in Berbice eliminated three other bandits who were tormenting residents in that region. It also come on the heels of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) saying that its members are deeply concerned that insufficient progress is being made with regards to the fight against crime.

The three bandits had attempted to rob a family with relatives who recently returned from overseas and would usually hang out at their Lot 46 Norton Street, Lodge, home when they were shot dead by police. Luckily for the family of Neville Leslie, a 40-year-old contractor, whom the bandits pounced on, a police patrol was in the area at the time. The policemen on patrol intercepted the bandits and cornered them in the house during the shootout. Police recovered three guns and many spent shells from the crime scene. The victim said he was confronted by one of the bandits at approximately 20:30hrs. His wife had left for work at 20:00hrs, along with his sister-in-law. “By the time I get up to go and lock up the door, one man jumped over the fence and rush to my door, pointing a gun to my face, telling me ‘where the gold and the money deh’, and if I don’t talk they will shoot me. At the time, I my five-year- old son come downstairs and he told me that if my son don’t keep quiet, they will shoot my son,” the traumatise man explained.
One of the bandits, he said, asked him about a relative who recently returned to Guyana. “He ask where the gold that she does deh wearing deh and the money. I had to tell them all those things were fake and has no real value. Imagine he come to rob me and I am at home for two months now, without work,” the contractor said. He continued: “Then another one said ‘let we tie up this man and do him like what we does do everybody else’ and I said, man y’al don’t have to do we nothing, and my son keep asking, ‘daddy they gon shoot we’”.

The father said he then heard police arrive on the scene and the men scattered and he immediately ran into his room and barricaded the door with his bed. “I then loose out some of the louvers from the room window and I let down my son and one of the policemen collected him and then I jumped through the window,” he said. This is the first time Leslie has been robbed at Lodge. He has been living in the community for the past two years. “All three of them (bandits) were armed with handguns; these men were young and in their 20s; before I come out the house one of them fired at the police and the police fired back and he started groaning,” the young father related. He added: “I was praying in my mind all the time for the police to pass and then I hear people hollering, ‘men gone in that house and lock in that door’ and that looked unusual, and the police ask if it was someone with a flap hat and they said ‘yes’ and from then shots start.” Residents in the area were loud in praise of the police. When asked what could have prompted the men to want to rob him, Leslie said people are of the opinion that if barrels arrive from overseas, “yo got money”.