Three suspected robbers have been captured after their getaway was derailed by persistent Mahaicony residents, who went as far as to set a field on fire to force one of the men out of hiding.
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum confirmed yesterday that two of the three men were hospitalised and under police guard as a result of the injuries they sustained during their capture. One of the men was beaten by residents, while another was shot during a confrontation with police.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that the four robbers, who had attacked the J. Singh and Sons Supermarket at La Raisonable, Mahaicony on Wednesday afternoon, crashed the car they stole for the getaway into a trench. They were being pursued by residents at the time.
The first suspect to be held, identified as a 51-year-old Charlestown resident, was captured on Wednesday. He was, however, badly beaten before being handed over to the police. A 9mm gun with matching rounds and some of the stole items was found on the suspect, while a disconnected DVR was found in the car.
Residents subsequently continued to search the surrounding area for the trio that managed to escape. After the sun began to rise yesterday, they decided to set fire to the field, where it was suspected that the men were hiding. Two of the suspects were arrested and identified as a 30-year old fisherman from Corriver-ton and a 21-year-old labourer from Rosignol.
Stabroek News understands that during the arrest, there was a confrontation between the 21-year-old and the police, who shot the man to the right shoulder.
There was no word on the fourth suspect up to press time.
On Wednesday afternoon, four armed bandits had attacked the J. Singh and Sons Supermarket, located at Lot 1 La Raisonable, Mahaicony.
“It was around 2pm when four guys came in pretending to be normal customers and held us up at gunpoint,” Vishnu Singh, the son of the supermarket’s owner, recalled yesterday. He said the attack lasted about an hour and a half.
According to Singh, after the men held up him and his mother at gunpoint, they started to ransack the store. “After they just started to beat my mother and they cuff me up and kept asking for money and jewellery,” he added. After the men were finished searching thoroughly, they forcibly took the key to car away from him.
However, Singh said that while the bandits were harassing them, a customer had approached the store and noticed the robbery. She subsequently ran out of the yard and alerted other residents. “After the woman alerted the residents, the four men rushed to the car, jumped in, and sped off,” he said.
The men, who escaped with the vehicle and bags of cash, jewellery, and phone cards, soon found many residents rushing after them.
After a high speed chase began, the men lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a nearby trench.
One of the residents who helped capture the three men said that after the car crashed into the trench, one of the suspects was apprehended by a team of residents, including members of a community policing group.
The man, who asked not to be named, explained that shortly after they captured the bandit, the police arrived. “At that time the place had started to get dark, so we tried to get some info from the one about the whereabouts of the three rest and he said that he don’t know,” the man added.
As night fell on Wednesday, the man recounted, they decided to stop searching the bushy area and they just patrolled around it.
“One guy out on the road spotted the two trying to escape and he alerted the group. They rushed back into the bush and so everyone decided to check the bush,” he added. The man noted that at that point the police had left the search team.
According to the resident, as the sun was rising yesterday, they decided to search the bushes again and came upon signs of the men. He said residents were armed with cutlasses, which they were using to chop the bush. It was while one of the residents tried to cut down a specific part of the bush that they heard someone shout “Don’t chop me! Don’t chop me!”
“After he said that, we captured him and questioned him about the other one and he said it was just he and so we decided to light the bush on fire to force the others out,” the man said.
The bush fire was successful in forcing out the third bandit.
