Sunday night discovered four AK 47 magazines and dozens of spent shells of various calibre ammunition during a search of an Albouystown residence and two men who were detained remain in police custody to assist with investigations.
Police said in a press release yesterday that around 19:30 hrs police conducted a search on a house at James and Victoria streets, Albouystown, during which the illegal items were found.
When Stabroek News visited the area the house, which is in a yard with three other buildings, appeared isolated. Neigh-bours and persons at a nearby shop were reluctant to speak about what had transpired.
A man was later seen walking in and out of one of the houses but he ignored attempts to engage him. There were no police ranks visible near the house but this newspaper noticed a few of them on foot patrol a few corners away.
Based on the information reaching this newspaper, two brothers were involved in a physical altercation and after efforts to part them proved futile, the police were called. It was when the police arrived that a search was eventually conducted on the house. One source said that the magazines were found in the bottom flat of the two-storey house. The top of the building is under construction and is incomplete. The spent shells, the source said, were found under a tree at the back of the yard.
Stabroek News understands that one of the persons arrested is a teenager and there are claims that someone had done some practice shooting. Ranks now will now be running ballistics tests to ascertain whether any of the spent shells are linked to any crime scene.
Meanwhile, a security source said the discovery of that amount of spent shells is surprising and he questioned what someone would want them for. The source said that in the United States there are systems in place for the security forces to reload bullets. “We don’t do that sort of thing here. You have to get the equipment, the resources, the knowledge and the technical means to do that,” the source said before insisting that he had never heard of an instance here where a bullet was reloaded.
He stated too that one of the security forces was in the habit of leaving spent shells at a firing range located in Timehri. He stated that while it is an isolated area and is supposed to be restricted, it is wide open and persons can easily access it.
The source stated that it would be against the law to pick up those spent shells and by extension to be found with spent shells in your possession. It was noted that based on the amount of shells that was found in Albouystown, they were collected over a long period of time. The source opined that they all could not have come from various crime scenes as when persons are trying to conceal a crime what they would seek to do is to get rid of the spent shells as opposed to keeping them in their possession. “I don’t think that they were out of any criminal enterprise…” he said.
He said there is a possibility that our neighbours may have the capacity to reload bullets but stressed that this still does not explain what that amount was doing at that location.
Police are continuing their investigations.
