The police are investigating a gunfight that occurred at La Penitence Market yesterday afternoon during which a suspected bandit was shot.
The injured man has been identified as LaShawn Browne, who sustained two gunshot wounds and was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). He is said to be critical.
Police had few details about the shooting, which unfolded around 12.45 pm. However, Sunday Stabroek was told that Browne and two accomplices exited a vehicle in the vicinity of Twins Pharmacy and they allegedly opened fire on a man. Their target managed to escape but not before returning fire and hitting Browne.
Browne’s two accomplices subsequently escaped.
When this newspaper visited the scene yesterday, the police were present to conduct their investigation.
A vendor, who would only identify herself as Maureen, told Sunday Stabroek that she was standing in front her stall and attending to customers when one of them shouted, telling her to seek cover. “All I hear a lady tell me, ‘Maureen, Maureen, go the back [of stall], go the back and bend down’. So I go the back hay,” she said.
The woman related that prior to this, she did heard explosions but had no idea they were gunshots.
“When I hear the fuss one, I seh is a bicycle. You know, the bicycle when it puncture……Then I hear a second one, she seh ‘Maureen come, come leh we go the back,” Maureen said.
“Weh they come from me ain’t even know… I can’t say if they guh fah rob anybody or wah happen. Me ain’t know is wah transpire,” she added.
However, Maureen explained that her daughter and son-in-law were seated in the back seat of her 20-year-old grandson’s car, PHH 9230, which was parked in close proximity to where the shooting occurred.
She said a stray bullet pierced the rear windshield. Luckily, no one was hit. “Is a good thing they didn’t sit down in the middle,” Maureen observed.
Meanwhile, another vendor, who wished not to be named, said she noticed two men “dragging” Browne from one side of the road to the other side.
“…The person [Browne] lay flat on the ground and these boys pull this boy and carry he over the other side and they run through James Street and they gone,” the woman said.
“All I see two ah them was shooting whilst he (Browne) was running… Dah ain’t look like a robbery,” she added.
Vendors related to this newspaper that the injured man was left lying on the roadway for a while before the police arrived at the scene and he was transported to the GPH.
