Police inspector under close arrest after shooting incident

A Tactical Services Unit Inspector of Police is under close arrest after being unlawfully hired by a Berbice businessman and shooting a former employee of the man.

A police statement yesterday said that investigations are being conducted into the  matter which occurred at 6.35 pm on Tuesday at No.2 Village, East Canje, Berbice.

According to the police, the Inspector’s services were unlawfully secured by the businessman and the policeman went in search of the former employee who had allegedly embezzled money.

The police said that the inspector who was in plainclothes at the time located the former employee, who is a resident of Charlestown, Georgetown, at No. 2 Village and during efforts to arrest him “shot and injured him in the region of the left arm pit after he was allegedly attacked with a piece of wood”.

The former employee of a Chateau Margot East Coast facility has been admitted to the New Amsterdam Hospital and the police rank is under close arrest.

The inspector who was stationed at the Sparendaam Police Station has been placed under close arrest at the Central Police Station in NA.

A police source in Berbice told Stabroek News that the inspector acted irresponsibly and should have contacted them to assist in the man’s arrest.

The source said that the ex-employee would normally deposit proceeds from the business in a vault at the end of the day.

However when the owner turned up the next morning and checked the vault no money was there and the employee had already disappeared. The police at the Sparendaam Station were contacted and investigations were conducted.

The owner subsequently received information that the man was at Fort Ordnance, East Canje and the inspector travelled there to arrest him.

This newspaper learnt that the man was in a car and when the inspector ordered him to get into the other car. He complied and in the process he pushed the officer and caused him to fall in a drain.

The ex-employee then fled through an uncle’s yard and attempted to scale a picket fence which broke and caused him to fall.

The inspector followed him and as he closed in on him, the man picked up one of the staves and “advanced towards the inspector who fired the shot at him.”