Gunman shot during robbery bid at Plaisance Market

As he attempted a brazen morning robbery yesterday at the Plaisance Market on a vendor, a gunman was shot twice by police.

The shot man has been identified as 32-year-old Quacy Mc Pherson of the Plaisance Squatting area. He sustained gunshot wounds to the back of his head and his foot.

He was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospi-tal by the police and is currently in a stable condition and under police guard.

The vendor, identified as Hardai Rodrigues, was hit in her head by the bandit and was treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital and sent home.

“The lady selling there and he go up to the woman with gun and want tek way she bag but she fight back and same time the police come up and just dig two (gunshots) in he…,” an eyewitness told Stabroek News.

Plaisance has a market day on Sundays and vendors usually set up stalls, along the railway embankment stretching over 500 yards.

Rodrigues plies her trade in front of the Adam’s Power Bar located at the junction of the Plaisance Main Road and the Railway Embankment, commonly referred to as the Plaisance Line Top.

The eyewitness said that the market was busy when the gunman walked up to the woman and attempted to rob her. He said that Rodrigues screamed “for thief” when she was hit by the man and held on to her bag as she wrestled with him.

The man said that the robber is a “shady character” known by most villagers. According to the man, Mc Pherson had only recently been released from prison after serving a sentence for robbery under arms.

Meanwhile, police in a statement said that at about 1135h yesterday, vendor Rodrigues, 51 years, of Martyrs’ Ville, ECD, was attacked by a man armed with a firearm, later identified as McPherson, at the Plaisance Market, ECD. They stated that Rodrigues put up resistance during which she was struck to her head by her attacker.

According to the release, ranks of a mobile police anti-crime patrol arrived in the area at the same time and responded during which the suspect opened fire on the ranks. The police returned fire hitting him to the head and left foot.  An unlicenced .38 revolver with three rounds and a spent shell were recovered by the police.