– says crime chief, confirms armed bandits infiltrate protest

CRIME Chief, Senior Superintendent, Wendell Blanhum, said there was no evidence to suggest that the murder of teen cousins, Joel and Isaiah Henry, was politically motivated.

During a virtual joint services press briefing on Tuesday, Blanhum said “at this point and time we will not be disclosing what was the motive. We have a very tense situation and I would like the members of the public to allow the investigators to conduct a thorough and comprehensive investigation.”
Noting that members of the media will be informed as the investigations progress, the crime chief said evidence was retrieved from the crime scene and it was being packaged for submission to the forensic lab.

However, the crime chief noted that, at the current stage of the investigation, a murder weapon was not recovered.
A total of seven persons, he said have been arrested and are being questioned by detectives in relation to the murders, while investigators are pursuing three other individuals, but the situation on the ground is making it difficult to do so.

“I want to take this opportunity to ask persons not to obstruct the investigators. We had some difficulties from the initial investigation and we were making attempts to visit the crime scene and major crimes investigators were obstructed from going to the area. The other crime scene ranks, on their way back to Georgetown, were stuck in Berbice overnight and these are some of the difficulties that we are confronted with in terms of conducting our investigation in an expeditious manner,” the crime chief said.

At the scenes of the protest, he confirmed that one of the robberies that occurred was done by armed bandits.
The senior superintendent said that the police have received information of vehicles being attacked, along with other illegalities, but persons have not formally made those reports to the police as yet.