…thought he was ‘Cobra’
Seventeen-year-old Osafi Johnson, 23-year-old Chad Ronald and Dexter Bentick were involved in a shoot-out yesterday in East La Penitence in a case of mistaken identity. The shooting happened at approximately 14:30hours and police took two young men into custody.
The 17-year-old’s brother, Marlon Johnson, told the Guyana Chronicle that his brother was in front of his home at Phase One, Mandela Avenue when he was shot in the back.
“The police had on plain clothes. They shot him in he back and say they thought he was ‘Cobra’…the police that shoot he drop he gun and hold he head and say ‘Oh God is the wrong man’ when he realize it wasn’t no Cobra,” he said.
Tyrone ‘Cobra’ Rowe is currently wanted by police.
Johnson was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) and is in a critical condition.
Up to press time reports were that the young man’s condition was being monitored since he might be in need of surgery.
The boy’s mother, Mrs. Sandra Johnson, said he is just out of school was not involved in anything “shady” to her knowledge.
The injuries sustained by the 23-year-old, also at the GPH, are not yet known and Bentick was reportedly grazed by a bullet.
Last month relatives confirmed that ‘Cobra’ is a 17-year-old.
According to the Police he is the leader of a teenage gang being hunted by the police force’s anti-crime unit.
It was only after the shooting of his older brother that relatives released his name as Rowe.
At about 16:00hours Saturday, June 19, 26-year-old Jamal Beete’s body was discovered on the floor with a pillow lying a short distance away at an unoccupied house in George Street, Werk-en-Rust.
A post-mortem revealed that Beete died from gunshot injuries to the head.
Residents in the area did not report hearing a gunshot and Beete leaves behind a two-year-old son and a pregnant girlfriend.
Earlier reports suggested that Beete may have been mistaken for his younger brother, ‘Cobra’.
Official reports from the police say he is the head of a gang which has been committing gun crimes in the city but so far no information, photograph, or wanted bulletin has been released.
The only information released was the alias, ‘Cobra,’ and the fact that, along with the other members of his gang, he is being pursued by the force’s anti-crime unit.
The case of mistaken identity has been recurring since earlier this year.
Official reports carried in the media are that in May, two men, Colin Jack and Fabian Levius, had revealed that the police assaulted them at the Aziza Akouza Resort, Soesdyke/Linden Highway, after one of them was mistaken for “Cobra.”
The men detailed how they were wrongfully taken into police custody. The police subsequently apologised to the men for the incident.