Former murder accused Shawn Thom, who is suspected to be part of a crew trailing travellers from the Cheddi Jagan airport into the city, says he he is being framed by the police.
Thom, 37, who gave his address as Third Street, Alexander Village, was shot during a confrontation with police last Wednesday. He is still admitted as a patient under guard at the Georgetown Public Hospital’s Male Surgical Ward.
The police had said that at around 11pm police ranks confronted the occupants of a vehicle along Barr Street, Kitty after a rank, who had picked up his relatives from the airport, reported his suspicion that he was being followed.
According to the police statement on the shooting, after the police ranks confronted the occupants of the vehicle, there was a shootout and Thom was shot to his left foot. They added that while Thom’s accomplices managed to escape, the vehicle was seized and an unlicensed .38 revolver with three live rounds and two spent shells were recovered. This newspaper was also told that two cell phones were found in Thom’s possession.
Speaking yesterday from his hospital bed, Thom said he was shot to his right knee by a man who identified himself as a police constable. However, he maintained that he has never been involved in any robbery, despite what police say.
“I is a taxi man and I pick up two persons from the La Penitence Market on Wednesday night and they say they going to the seawall. When I meet by Lamaha and Vlissengen Road, they give me a $5,000 bill, so I say I ain’t got change for the money and we decided that will stop at the first bar we see next to get the money change,” he recounted.
Thom said they stopped at a pool bar near Stanley Place and Barr Street to get the money changed. He said while the men went into the shop to change the money, he stood on the road.
“While I stand up there, I saw a tinted car coming towards me. All I hear somebody say, ‘Oye, y’all come,” [then] all four doors of the vehicle open [and] they start to fire shots towards us and I start to run because the amount of shots that were fired I couldn’t go towards them,” he said, while noting that he ran towards the police station but the men followed him in the vehicle and eventually caught up with him. “How they behave is like they come with the intention to kill somebody, that is why when I hear all them shots fired I run right away. But they think I mussee did wan’ get away from them,” he added.
“I tell them I is a taxi driver don’t shoot me and they drag me, put a gun to my right knee and shoot and I could move anymore after that,” he further alleged
Thom said he was charged along with another before for a murder and he spent five years in prison. He is of the belief that because he is known to the police, they are trying to link him to robberies.
“I don’t be involve in robberies. Since I was free of that murder, I don’t even go nowhere and hang out just to avoid problems,” Thom stated.
Orin David, called ‘Plait Hair,’ and Thom were charged with the murder of Lakeram Bishundial who was fatally shot during a robbery at Hope, East Coast Demerara, on August 21, 2010. He was freed earlier this year after a judge upheld a no-case submission made on his behalf at his trial. David was later freed as well.
