President Bharrat Jagdeo on Wednesday insisted that the gunmen who killed 23 persons in two villages and shot recently at the East La Penitence Police Station will soon be caught as ballistic evidence proves that the same group carried out the attacks.
“We will not stop until we get them,” Jagdeo told reporters at a press conference. He said too that the attack on the police station was worrying but the lawmen have had quite a bit of training and will track down the gang. “It’s just a matter of time and we are going to get this gang. We’re going to get them, I’m making it clear. We are not going to stop until we get them,” he declared.
Police recently matched the spent shells found at the station to those gathered at the scenes of the Lusignan and Bartica murders. In a statement last week police said that ballistics tests carried out on the twenty-three 7.62×39 spent shells recovered from the station revealed that they were from rounds fired from two firearms and further, that the shells matched those found at the two murder scenes. The statement was the first official word about a link between the two slaughters. The results also linked the shells to a robbery/murder at Canal Number Two, West Bank Demerara during 2006 the release added. It said too investigations are ongoing into the attack on the station.
Prior to this, it was believed that the killings at Lusignan and Bartica were conducted by gunmen from Buxton/Agricola. However, the president had taken the lead in announcing, two days after the Bartica bloodbath in February, that the murderers were the same men who had slaughtered 11 persons at Lusignan in January. Jagdeo later repeated the statement that the two killings were linked.
When Stabroek News visited the police station after the shooting last Tuesday night, several officers there were unwilling to speak about the attack. This newspaper was also told that the gunmen attacked the station from both the eastern and southern ends and several bullets holes could be seen on the outer walls of the Mandela Avenue building.
A taxi driver told this newspaper that he was on Mandela Avenue on the said night when he heard rapid gunfire. The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he and several colleagues from the same service immediately came off the road. He also said though he was not certain where the gunfire was coming from he never imagined that it was an attack on a police station.
A security guard at a nearby building had told this newspaper that she was in the guard hut when she heard the shots and, fearing for her life she stayed in. She said after the gunfire subsided, she ventured outside and saw some police officers frantically looking around.
Over the years, gunmen have routinely targeted police stations on their way to committing serious atrocities, as happened in the January and February when the attacks were carried out on Lusignan and Bartica.
