A well-known Waterloo Street bicycle mechanic was last evening shot in his thigh allegedly by two police officers who were in pursuit of two men said to have been involved in a robbery.
The injured man Phillip Small, 47, also known as ‘Skinny’ was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
When Stabroek News arrived at the GPH, a police van which had about 10 officers dressed in blue uniform arrived with Small, who was in the tray of the van.
Two other officers on motorcycles quickly cordoned off the area.
“Y’all shoot me in foot for nothing,” Small was heard protesting. “Who is al’yuh, boy? Me ain‘t do nothing.”
When this newspaper visited the area where the shooting occurred, an eyewitness, who preferred to be anonymous, said that about 8.15 pm, two men ran into Small’s vulcanising shop in Waterloo Street.
“Two police wuh had on brown clothes been pon them bikes coming after these two boys when they run in ‘Skinny” shop… The place was dark and them police move stupid because people who living nearby coulda get hit with how them start shoot up,” the eyewitness recalled.
He added the two men escaped as Small was the only person brought out of his shop and taken to the hospital.
Another resident who provided her name as Janet said she was home when she heard motorcycles and gunfire.
“I was with my son in the living room when all of a sudden all I heard was ‘don’t run we gon shoot yuh down’ and then about like 15-20 bullets I heard shoot out and I held my son because he was scared,” Janet said.
Sometime after, when she felt it was safe to look out, she said, she saw officers on motorcycles and vans and angry residents shouting at them.
