Minutes after a brazen armed robbery outside Avon headquarters on Camp Street, the three suspects were arrested and police recovered some of the stolen money along with an unlicensed gun.
Two of the suspects were found hiding in a shack at Walker Terrace, West La Penitence and residents recalled hearing at least two gunshots before seeing several van loads of uniformed and plain clothes policemen. It is unclear who discharged the rounds.
Police, in a press release, said that around 12:50 hrs Daniel Joseph, a 31-year-old clerk attached to Beauty and Home Systems (the importers of Avon products), Camp Street, Georgetown, was attacked and robbed of $1.3 million. Joseph, who had the money in an envelope, was accosted by two men, one of whom was armed with a firearm, as he and two other employees were about to get into a vehicle outside the business place. The perpetrators, according to the release, ran into Lamaha Street, where they joined motor car HB 663 and escaped. “Police anti-crime and other patrols were quickly informed of the incident through the radio network and subsequently ranks of a TSU anti-crime patrol intercepted the vehicle at Cemetery Road, George-town,” the release said. It added that the driver was arrested.
Further enquiries led to the arrest of two other suspects “in a house at Walker Terrace, West La Penitence, where an unlicensed 9 mm pistol with 16 matching rounds and $1 million were recovered by the police.” The three men are in police custody and charges are expected to be laid shortly.
Quick thinking
Stabroek News was unable to speak with representatives of the business place but according to a source, a policeman witnessed the bandits jumping into a white car and he followed them. While hot on their trail, this newspaper was told, the rank informed his colleagues of what was taking place.
It was due to the quick thinking of the rank, the source said, that police were able to intercept the taxi driver but his accomplices managed to escape. The area where the taxi driver was caught is a short distance from the Lot 35 Walker Terrace address where the two accomplices were found hiding.
When Stabroek News arrived, the police had already left the area but several residents were milling around discussing the incident.
One resident told Stabroek News that some time after 1 pm she heard gunshots. The woman said that to her the sounds were coming from the opposite direction and she did not think much of it until somebody informed her that police were at the head of the street.
She said when she peeped out there were countless policemen and they blocked off a section of the street. The resident said she was unable to venture close to the address the police were concentrating on but she could hear persons hollering. She said two men, one of whom resides at the address, were brought out in handcuffs. She said the men were covered in mud and appeared to have been victims of a beating. The woman said she did not know why the men were arrested but that police had never swooped down on that address before.
Other residents who this newspaper spoke with said they only became aware that something was happening when they saw several van loads of policemen in the area. The other man who was arrested, this newspaper was told, is a resident of Albouystown and has been identified as ‘Red man.’
Damage
Amputee Louisa James, 69, whose son was one of the two suspects arrested, fought back tears as she looked at the ransacked interior of her one room shack and her broken wheelchair. It was damaged in the police’s search for the stolen money and weapon.
James said she had gone out earlier and when she returned home with her 11-year-old grandson, they were confronted by a heavily police presence in her yard. The woman added that a plain clothes policeman, who was directing traffic on the road, told her “yuh can’t go in there!” The woman said that about four police vans were parked in front of her yard but the ranks did not tell her why they were there.
Further, James said she insisted that she wanted to go into her yard but the police refused to let her pass. She said one of them turned to her and said, “Yuh sitting down in wheelchair. Yuh got one foot. Like yuh wan dead?”
Fighting back tears, the woman said that she was on the road for about an hour and when she viewed her house after the police had left it was in disarray.
According to James, the police broke the locks on her door to gain entry. They then ripped up floorboards, removed the mattress from the bed, tumbled through clothes and damaged her brand new wheelchair, which was recently sent for her by overseas-based relatives.
The grandson at this point interjected that he walked into the yard but a policeman, while using foul language, instructed him to leave.
James told Stabroek News that her son lives in an adjoining building and police had never visited there before. The elderly woman said the police did not tell her what they were looking for but several young boys said the ranks were saying that they were looking for a bandit. One of the young men in the area said “Red Man” was found hiding in some bushes in the yard. They said that as the police were taking the two men to the vehicle, they hit James’ son’s head to a concrete wall.
The interior his house was also ransacked.
