One man is dead and at least one other is seriously injured following a robbery attempt on a businessman at Grove, East Bank Demerara yesterday.
Dead is Michael Grant, 18, of Third Street, Agricola, while one of his accomplices, Curtis Vasconcellos, 21, of First Street Agricola is in a critical condition at the Georgetown Public Hospital. The businessman who was the target of the attempted robbery was also shot and was admitted to a hospital. His condition was not known last night.
According to information received, businessman Imran Khan, who recently had 10 of his employees killed in a mining pit accident, was at his snackette in Grove, when four men on two motorcycles rode up. One of them allegedly tried to wrench his gold chain off his neck.
An eyewitness told Stabroek News that one of the men who was armed with a gun jumped off a motorcycle and went up to Khan. He said Khan resisted the man and they started to fight and then gunshots went off. “That’s all I see and then I run back in the street,” the eyewitness said.
The Guyana Police Force said in a statement that the incident occurred around 14:30 hrs and the gunman shot the victim to his left arm.
Khan returned fire, hitting the gunman to his chest. The gunman, Grant, was subsequently pronounced dead at the Diamond Hospital.
Meanwhile, Vasconcellos, who was shot to his neck and arm, told the police and his relatives that he was not aware that the other man was going to commit a robbery.
His father, Clement Vasconcellos, said Curtis told him, “a boy come up to him and ask him for a drop” and that he did not know he was about to be taken to a robbery.
Curtis, who was riding his brother’s motorcycle, told his father “that they ride up and he park the bike over the road and when he turn around he see the boy and a man scuffling on the ground and gun shots went off so he ride off and then he got shot,” the father said.
The senior Vasconcellos said his son related too that after he was shot and fell off the motorcycle, the man who had shot him and the boy (Grant) jumped onto the motorcycle and began chasing after and shooting at the other motorcycle. However, the other two men managed to escape, though one is suspected to also have been shot.
The police have since seized the motorcycle which Curtis Vasconcellos was riding as investigations into the incident continue.
