– victim shot, injured in separate incident
Gunmen attacked Meadow Brook Gardens residents, in two separate incidents last night, wounding one resident and losing one of their own.
The dead gunman, who this newspaper understands hails from Plaisance, East Coast Demerara, arrived at the Georgetown Public Hospital in a taxi and was pronounced dead on arrival. He had been shot by the owner of the house he and others had attempted to rob.
According to Vernon Forest, he was at his friend’s house in Meadow Brook Drive “having a drink” on the front verandah when the bandits suddenly appeared. “There were four of us, one woman included,” the man told Stabroek News at the hospital last night.
“I thought it was a joke,” Forest said. “…I realized it wasn’t a joke when one of the men pointed a gun at my head.” He said one of the bandits immediately grabbed a cell phone and $6,000 from one of his friends.
Police sources told this newspaper that the four gunmen, climbed onto the side verandah of Ian Bruce’s house at Meadow Brook Drive, and went through the open door into the house. The men then proceeded to the front verandah where they launched their surprise attack on the four people there.
Forest said the owner of the house somehow managed to slip into his bedroom where he got his licensed firearm, emerged and shot one of the gunmen “point blank” in the chest.
As soon as this happened, Forest said, the four bandits all fled the scene on foot, with the wounded man trying his best to keep up. Further, according to Forest, he noticed a car approximately two houses away moving in the same direction the men were headed.
“Imagine he lost his life for a cellular phone and $6, 000,” Forest stated. He said the bandits were wearing jackets with hoods and the hoods were pulled over their faces.
Some distance down the street, the wounded bandit hailed a taxi, which had been dispatched to Meadow Brook Drive to do a pickup.
The driver who delivered the gunman to the hospital said he was contacted by his dispatcher and told to do a pick up in Meadow Brook Drive. He explained that as he was nearing his pick up point he heard a man call out to him, “this is your pick up”.
Assuming that it was that person who had called the taxi, the driver stopped.
“He was bleeding when he come in the car,” the driver explained. “…so I rush with him to the hospital.”
On arrival at the hospital with the man, who had by that time expired in the back seat of his car, the taxi driver was detained by the police for questioning.
Clearly distressed, the taxi driver said that he was only doing his job. “I learn my lesson now,” he said. “Innocent people will have to suffer now because I won’t pick up bleeding people now unless I know why they’re in that state.”
Stabroek News arrived at the hospital just after 9.30 pm to learn that just one street away on Bamboo Drive, a 23-year-old man was making his way home when he was attacked by two gunmen.
Michael Reid was relieved of his cellular phone worth about $38,000 and sustained a gunshot wound to his left thigh. Up to press time last night, he was said to be in stable condition.
Reid’s girlfriend said he was on his way home when he was attacked by two men, possibly from the group, which attempted to rob the house in Meadow Brook Drive.
Meanwhile, shortly before 10 pm, three women, one of whom was said to be the mother of the dead bandit, arrived at the police outpost at the hospital wailing and identified him as their family member. (Sara Bharrat)
