Cobra,’ the gang leader who is being hunted by the police force’s anti-crime unit, is a 17-year-old, relatives have confirmed.
Police said he is the head of a gang which has been committing gun crimes in the city but so far no information, photograph or wanted bulletin has been released. The only information released was the alias, ‘Cobra,’ and the fact that along with the other members of his gang he is being pursued by the force’s anti-crime unit. However, following the execution of his brother, relatives gave the wanted man’s name as Tyrone Rowe.
When contacted yesterday on the issue, the Police Public Relations Department referred this newspaper to Crime Chief Seelall Persaud. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Last Saturday, Jamal ‘Radio’ Beete was found dead, with a gunshot wound to the head in a George Street house. Relatives later confirmed that Beete was the older brother of Rowe. Contacted yesterday, the men’s mother Donna told this newspaper that at the age of eight months, Rowe was taken to live with his maternal grandmother. In tears, the woman said that she didn’t raise Rowe and hadn’t been in contact with him in recent times.
The woman recalled that three Sundays ago, around 5 am, a large number of police surrounded her Albouystown home while others barged in. They said that they had received information that a wanted man was in her house. The woman said that the men ransacked her refrigerator and snatched her young grandson to look at his face. She said that they held her “chirrin father” and a son and before they left they also collected to two photographs. Neither of the photographs was of Rowe.
Donna said that in a statement she told the police that Rowe was indeed her son but she did not know his whereabouts. “I am his mother yes but ah tell dem that ah give he to he grandmother at eight months,” she said, adding that she did not know Rowe’s likes from dislikes.
The woman was reluctant to speak much on her wanted son and told this newspaper that every body is concentrating on him and not the one who was murdered. “Everybody just coming and ask when last ah see meh wanted son but this one dead. Nobody ain’t thinking about dat. He is not a dog… Right now ah got to study about money fuh bury he. Ah can’t tek it no more man. They lef he like a dog,” Donna said.
She said that persons, including the police, are trying to link her son’s death to Rowe. “They can’t seh that Radio is a thief so they trying to link the two,” she said.
The woman added that the media are only inquiring about the wanted one but Beete was beaten and then murdered. She added that Beete, her second son, was a good man who drove a horse cart. He was always loving and respectful to her, she said.
As persons focus on Rowe, she said, Beete leaves behind a two-year-old son and a heavily pregnant girlfriend.
Donna is fearful for her life, explaining that one son is wanted, another one has been killed and she don’t know what “they gon do next.” The men’s sister, Malika, said that Rowe was the second to last child for her mother. “The last time we see he [Rowe] was since he was 13 years old,” Malika recalled. “Back then he used to go to school.”
At the age of 13, Malika added, Rowe was already a troublesome child. He was getting in trouble for petty crimes and was always in fights. “My mother de try to correct his bad behaviour,” she said, “but my grandmother and she had a falling out over that…my grandmother told us to leave him alone. She said that he grew up with her and there was nothing wrong with him.”
After the “falling out” between their mother and grandmother, Malika said, Rowe stopped coming around. She insisted that the family had not seen him since and did not know his whereabouts.
The grandmother who raised Rowe died in February.
In May two men, Colin Jack and Fabian Levius, had revealed that the police assaulted them at the Aziza Akouza Resort, Soesdyke/Linden Highway, after one of them was mistaken for “Cobra.” This was the first time police had mentioned that name.
The men detailed how they were wrongfully taken into police custody. The police subsequently apologised to the men for the incident.
