Shot Albouystown teen shows sign of recovery

Quinn Neblett, the 17-year-old who was shot in the abdomen by a policeman in Albouystown last Thursday, is showing signs of improvement, according to a hospital source.  Neblett abdomen was stitched by doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital yesterday after the air that was accumulated inside was released.

Neblett, who has been moved from the hospital’s High Dependency Unit (HDU) to its Male Ward, is said to be in a stable condition and is being monitored. Police and Neblett’s family are split over the circumstances surrounding the shooting. The police had said that Neblett and two other men attacked a policeman in plain clothes on the night he was shot.

According to police, he was later identified that same night and he and others were pursued on foot by the ranks.

Police said a police officer caught up Neblett, who attacked him with a knife and wounded the constable to his left arm, forcing the rank to discharge two rounds at him, hitting him to his left leg and abdomen. But according to Neblett’s attorney, Nigel Hughes, he was unarmed and fired upon at point blank range with a high-powered weapon after he was cornered in a small zinc enclosure he had run into for fear of the police.  Hughes had also said the six shots were fired inside the enclosure Neblett was standing in. One of Neblett’s friends had also told Stabroek News that she was with him when the police came.

The girl said they were sitting in front of a house and Neblett and the other boys ran to the back of the house. The police followed them and about 15 minutes after, the girl said, she heard rapid gunfire. Neblett was then brought out by the police with his intestines protruding, she added.