Police fatally shoot Corriverton man charged with armed robbery

A press release from the police on Friday said that Romel Awad Tooliah, 32, of No 79 Village, Corriverton, Corentyne was killed by a mobile patrol around 9.30 pm on Thursday following an exchange of fire at Kingston Corriverton.

According to the release, the police, acting on information received, encountered two men at the No 76 Housing Scheme, Kingston, Corriverton, in the vicinity of the canefields at about 21:30 hrs. The two men opened fire on the police officers, who returned fire, fatally wounding Tooliah, while the other man managed to escape. The police found an unlicensed .38 Smith and Wesson revolver with a matching round and two spent shells in Tooliah’s possession.

A police source told this newspaper that the force had been looking for Tooliah because he was a suspect in an armed robbery which had taken place in Princetown, Corriverton earlier on Thursday, when three armed bandits entered the home of Sampattie Jaipaul and made off with $350,000 in cash and jewellery, as well as a video camera. The three occupants of the house had been tied up with wire and their mouths bound with cloth.

Tooliah’s mother Radha Rambali

Family members and friends were in tears when Stabroek News visited the Kingston Corriverton residence of Romel Awad Tooliah yesterday, and they accused the police of killing their relative in cold blood, while his mother alleged he had been beaten.

However, a senior police source dismissed the allegations as being without substance, and said that the police had indeed been fired on. The source also said that Tooliah had been hit in the right arm, right shoulder and the area of the ribs.

The man’s mother, Radha Rambali, told Stabroek News that she received the message her son had been shot at 6 am and she identified his body around 4.30 pm. “I recognize he from the clothes he wear,” Rambali said. However, she was unable to describe the wounds he had received, other than to say there was blood from his head.

Tooliah’s sister, Bonita, told this newspaper that her mother had a haberdashery stall in Skeldon Market, and that her brother would assist in packing it. However, in more recent times he had been “harassed” by the police, and as a consequence he stayed home cooking. At one point, she said, he had lived in St Lucia for a year where he worked as a painter and mason.

Home of Romel Awad Tooliah

The police statement said three warrants for Tooliah’s arrest had been issued, and he had been before the courts charged with nine counts of robbery under arms and possession of a firearm without a licence and ammunition without a licence.

The charges stemmed from armed robberies committed on two sets of persons on August 30, 2008, and May 9, 2009, at Corriverton in Berbice. Tooliah was also wanted in relation to an incident on March 12, 2005 during which Mohamed Yusuf was shot and injured.