Taxi drivers at Diamond, East Bank Demerara have expressed concern for their safety following an attack on driver attached to a taxi service on Thursday night by two men who turned out to be Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers.
The two rogue officers, who are reportedly attached to the police CID headquarters at Eve Leary, were yesterday under close arrest after they were reportedly caught red-handed after a failed carjacking at Prospect, on the East Bank.
Acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell could not be contacted for a comment yesterday.
According to reports, the two officers hired the car from the Platinum Taxi Service located at Grove, close to the Bounty Supermarket. The two men requested to be taken to a location on the lower East Bank, but the driver of the car realised something was amiss when the men appeared unsure about regards their destination.
According to a police source, the two men requested to be taken into a street at Prospect but the driver, who was familiar with the area, turned the car into the popular corner known as “110” and soon after the two men began to assault the hapless man. He was hit several times to his head with a metal object.
The man, who was bleeding, ran along the street towards a group of men who were sitting at a corner, screaming. “…When they see the car they run wid wood and start beat one a dem,” a woman in the area recounted yesterday.
She said the man was savagely beaten by villagers who came out in large numbers. While this was happening residents ran in the direction of a bridge which separates the community from nearby Covent Garden, where persons noted the man’s accomplice had run.
According to a police source, the man’s accomplice ran to a house in Dark Street in the nearby community and was promptly subdued by a police officer who lives at the house. Reports are that the officer handcuffed the man and it was during a confrontation with residents that the man admitted that he and his accomplice were in fact CID ranks. The men were subsequently handed over to the police.
Yesterday drivers at the Diamond car park close to DDL noted that the incident was shocking. However, most are under the impression that the attack was a mere eye opener. They said that several months ago, the body of one of their colleagues was found in front of a house at Enmore, East Coast Demerara and many shared the view yesterday that the man’s death came at the hands of carjackers.
“These bannas now want yo car and they killing for it so we glad that we know is who involved in this whole thing; police got to investigate dem own now,” an angry driver noted yesterday.
Many are of the view that the carjackers were after the car the man was driving on Thursday night, noting that the criminals are after the parts which are readily marketed, given the popular models of cars available today.
The injured driver was hospitaliaed along with one of the men yesterday and reports are that the two officers are expected to make a court appearance early next week.
