– laptop stolen; cops hold two men

Bandits attacked a group of students as they went over lessons in the Botanical Gardens yesterday, snatching a laptop computer and shooting a teenager in the thigh before escaping. Two men have since been arrested.

Police said in a press release issued yesterday evening that they were investigating an armed robbery that occurred around noon during which a student, Samantha Hollingsworth, 16, of Kitty was shot and injured in the left thigh and ankle. She has been admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital.

The police said Hollingsworth was one of a group of students who were accosted by two men on a motor scooter – CE 4573.   The men held up the teen, the police said, and demanded her laptop computer, but she struggled with them and was shot.

Acting on information, police went to a house in James Street, Albouystown and arrested two men. The police also recovered a warhead at the scene, the release said.

The brazen midday attack traumatized the group of around 15 city students.

“I fight for my computer but they ride away with it,” the injured teenager recounted at the Georgetown Public Hospital yesterday.

Covered in bruises and nursing the gunshot wound, the young woman related that she struggled with the two men, one of whom was armed, to retrieve her laptop that was snatched but was unsuccessful. She recalled that after the men grabbed the computer they mounted a motorcycle, which she immediately climbed onto as well, but fell off after a few minutes.

The young woman told Stabroek News that she and a group of friends had decided to study in the gardens and she took along her new laptop computer. The computer, a Sony Vaio, was purchased just last week. She related that the group was going over lessons when two men approached on a motorcycle.

The men looked suspicious, according to her, but before she and her friends could react to their presence the men pounced. She said that one of the men immediately demanded the laptop.

“He demanded my computer and I resisted and tried to run away with it when I hear the other one tell him to shoot me. I tried to run away, but was shot,” she related.

Even with the gunshot wound in her thigh, the teenager fought for her computer. She said that the men mounted the motorcycle they rode up with and within seconds she was on the cycle with them, but she could not hold on for longer than a few minutes. She fell from the cycle and sustained several bruises.

Shortly after the attack the teenager was transported to the public hospital.

“I like my computer and I hope to get it back,” the girl said in explaining why she fought the men for it.

According to her, the police managed to apprehend the suspects shortly after with the assistance of her friends.