Records to be checked as regards 911 no response claim, Greene says

The emergency number 911 is in working order, Acting Police Commissioner Henry Greene said, but added that the phone company would have to be contacted in relation to allegations that no one answered it during last week’s bus robbery on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway.

Greene told the media on Monday, “When you ring 911 it depends on where you are. It rings at different points.”

He said he was not sure where it would have rung when the passenger called the number that night and explained that the telephone records would have to be checked.

“I am not sure where he was when it would have rung. We need to check that. We don’t know where it would have rung. We have to get onto to GT&T for that point in the highway where the 911 would ring and then we go to the records,” he told the media.

Around 8.30 pm, a Lethem-bound bus attached P&A Bus Service and driven by Dhanram Singh, was on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway when it was attacked by armed bandits in two cars after the back tyres were shot out.

Singh and his nine passengers – five Brazilians, two Surinamese and two Guyanese – were made to lie in the bushes while the gunmen tumbled their luggage before escaping with a quantity of cash and jewellery and documents including passports.

During the course of the robbery, Singh called `Bedi’ was grazed by a bullet in the back, while Brazilian Barbara Ferreira was shot in her wrist. She had run into the bushes as the incident unfolded and was not located until after 11 pm, when the army arrived to assist in the search.

Singh had told Stabroek News that the incident occurred a little past the highway patrol outpost and after the gunmen fled, a passenger dialled the emergency number on a cell phone but did not get through.

He stressed that they were getting signal on their cellular phones and he later made contact with someone else and that was how police arrived on the scene.

Singh pointed out that had someone answered the emergency number, contact could have been made with the nearby police outpost and the gunmen could have been caught.

For some time persons have been complaining bitterly about not being able to get help when they call the number.

The police have said in the past that often persons would ring 911 as a prank and abuse the officer who answered the phone. The police have since been running an advertisement on the state-owned television station advising members of the public to only call the number in the event of an emergency. They have also said that the emergency hotline is in working order round the clock.