Carjackers traded shots with police early yesterday morning when their getaway was interrupted by members of an alert police patrol.
Although the two carjackers managed to relieve a Sheriff Taxi Service driver of his vehicle, a tracking device installed in the car later led to its eventual recovery in Number 40 Village, Berbice.
Stabroek News was informed that sometime around 2 am, the dispatcher at the service’s base received a request for a taxi at the Prashad Nagar Police Outpost. Taxi driver Hardat Balgobin, who was on duty, went to the location to do the pick-up.
When he arrived, he picked up two men who requested to be taken to Sophia. While they were in the vicinity of the road between the University of Guyana compound and Cummings Lodge, one of the men brandished a gun and demanded that the taxi driver hand over his valuables. This newspaper was told that the taxi driver was struck to the head with the weapon and was later pushed out of the vehicle.
However, Balgobin ran to the nearby Turkeyen Police Station and reported the attack and he also alerted the base about what had transpired. Around the same time, a passing patrol was notified and gave chase after the carjackers, who were heading up the East Coast.
There was subsequently an exchange of gunfire somewhere along the East Coast corridor. However, the patrol’s attempt to pursue the carjackers was cut short after it was blocked by horses that ran across the road.
A source said that having been alerted about the attack, a group of taxi drivers from the base headed up the East Coast in search of the stolen car. They were being guided by an official at the base who was monitoring the movement of the vehicle through its tracking device.
The source said that the car was found, minus the tape deck and the radio set, in Berbice, just over an hour after it was taken.
According to a Sheriff Taxi Service driver, all of the company’s cars are outfitted with tracking devices.
In 2012, the company began making use of Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices after a few of their drivers were held at gunpoint and their vehicles were stolen. Taxi drivers have killed during such attacks.
Then Operations Super-visor Leroy Williams, while stressing the importance of security for all drivers, had said that the company’s roughly 90 cars were equipped with the devices.
Williams explained that the system allowed him to monitor all the cars. He said the tracking system came in handy at least twice in 2011 and cited an incident in Sophia where a driver, who was in the area, was able to go to the assistance of another driver in trouble and scare off the carjackers.
Meanwhile, a taxi driver told Stabroek News yesterday that drivers are on edge as within the last few weeks carjackers have been on the prowl and at least two drivers are yet to recover their vehicles. Some of those targeted are attached to bases while other work by themselves. “It look like this thing starting up back,” the driver stressed.
