One of the men suspected of robbing a senior citizen in a knife-point attack was shot by the police in an Albouystown alleyway yesterday.
Kerry Cromwell, 18, of King Edward Street, Albouystown was shot by police responding to the attack and robbery committed on a 70-year-old man, who had his gold rings bitten off his fingers at Ketley and Drysdale streets, in Charlestown. Cromwell sustained a single gunshot wound to his thigh.
Police said in a press release yesterday afternoon that around 10:20am, Powlos Chandra, of Yarrow Dam, Ruimveldt, Georgetown, was attacked and robbed of his gold jewellery by two men armed with knives. Ranks of a police anti-crime motor cycle patrol, who were in the area, responded promptly to the report and gave chase behind the perpetrators. They caught up with them at Hunter Street, Albouystown. “During efforts to arrest them, the armed men attacked the ranks, causing them to resort to force,” the police said, while adding that one of the men was shot and injured to his right foot. The other man managed to escape.
The injured man (Cromwell) was taken to the hospital, where he was treated and sent away. Up to late yesterday afternoon, he was in police custody.
Eyewitnesses told Stabroek News that Chandra, who had just collected his pension, was riding on a bicycle when Cromwell and an accomplice allegedly approached. The two youths were also on a bicycle.
A resident said that the youths choked the elderly man and threw him into a nearby drain before snatching a gold chain and two rings he was wearing. They then fled the area but were chased by two policemen on motorcycles, the resident recounted. This newspaper has since learnt that a knife was recovered among Cromwell’s possessions.
At the Georgetown Hospital about an hour after the shooting, Cromwell’s upset relatives argued that the teen was mistakenly shot and had done nothing wrong. At one point, one of the responding ranks, whose foot was covered in mud apparently as a result of the chase, came under verbal attack.
Speaking to reporters outside the hospital compound, Shannon Greaves said that she was at home when she was informed that her son had been shot by the police at the corner of Hunter Street and Independence Boulevard. She said by the time she reached the area, Cromwell had already been taken to the hospital by police.
The woman said that she was told that there was a robbery in the area and police had stopped her son to question him. Greaves said based on the information she received, her son started giving the police “lil attitude” and it was at this point she said he was dragged off his bicycle and shot.
The woman said that she was unable to speak to her son at the hospital and when she approached the police started “behaving real bad.”
Greaves told reporters that all she wanted was for “police to stop harassing youths in Albouystown. It going on a long time and no body ain’t doing nothing to stop it.”
‘Shaken’
At Chandra’s Yarrow Dam home yesterday afternoon, he said that he was still shaken. He told this newspaper that this was second time he had been robbed.
Chandra explained that he had just picked up his pension from the Post Office and was riding along Drysdale Street on his bicycle. He was on his way to visit a friend in the area. While making his way to the friend’s house, two young men (one riding a bicycle and the towing the other on the handle of the transport) came towards him from the opposite direction. “They came up in front me and I had to stop. I had on a gold chain… and one of them tell me to give he the ‘f’ing’ chain and I handed it over,” Chandra said.
The two attackers then started to escape, Chandra recounted, and he thought it was the end of the ordeal. However, he then heard one of the attackers telling the other one that he (Chandra) was wearing gold rings and questioning if they were going to leave him with it.
The men attacked him a second time, Chandra said, and while one subdued his struggles the second attacker bit two gold rings from two of his fingers. After biting the ring from his fingers, the men then tried to get his bicycle and started brandishing knives at him. “They manage to catch me here lil,” Chandra said pointing to a small cut on the left side of his chest. “After that I get push in the drain.”
Residents in the area who know him well, Chandra said, helped him from the drain and helped him to wash the mud from his skin. He then made his way to the East La Penitence Police Station, where he lodged a report and gave police a statement.
Chandra said that police had asked him to go to the hospital to get a medical. However, the man said that no police vehicle was available to take him and he was too shaken to ride his bicycle all the way to the hospital.
The man further said that he believed that the attackers had been watching him and later trailed him to Drysdale Street to launch their attack. “They gone with all my pension…all of it they gone with,” he lamented.
In 2001, while working as a security guard at the De Sinco Trading Limited, Chandra said he was the victim of a robbery. The man said that he was severely beaten by the attackers and as a result one of his ears had been damaged. “That was the first time I get robbed (in 2001) and it was a bad experience…I never thought it would happen to me again…I am an old man and I am sick too. The whole thing from this morning left me shaken,” Chandra said.
