A 15-year-old school boy is now hospitalised after he was shot in his head during a daring daylight robbery at the Green Ice taxi service base at South Ruimveldt yesterday.
The incident occurred at around 1pm on Wren Avenue, South Ruimveldt. Jahmaul Lewis was in the yard of the taxi base on his bicycle when three men stormed into the yard and held him and the other workers at gunpoint. Jahmaul, who is a student at the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School, is an apprentice at the mechanic shop, housed at the same location. He works there for an hour every day to learn the trade.
Closed Circuit TV footage of the event has been retrieved and is being reviewed by the police.
Police, in a statement, said that Jahmaul allegedly had a scuffle with one of the suspects during which one round from the suspect’s firearm struck him in the face.
The employees were robbed of cellular phones and a small amount of cash and the suspects escaped in a silver Spacio car, the police said. The statement added that Jahmaul was in a serious condition at the hospital.
“I de stand up over here mixing a paste to paste up my visor on me car and everybody here doing their work and making jokes and so and I hear dem man hollering ‘ya’ll get down’ but me ain’t take it for anything and I continue mixing me thing,” one of the workers told Stabroek News.
He said that after ignoring the noise, he subsequently turned around and saw Jahmaul sitting on a bicycle with one of the bandits pointing a gun at him.
“He de just on the bicycle parked up, eating a plantain chip cause is that he went to buy and come back. And all of sudden, he (the bandit) shoot the boy to he head and he fall down and then (the bandit) point the gun to me and tell me lay down,” the visibly distraught man said. He recounted that after he dropped to the ground, he saw two more persons emerge from a small hut in the yard, exit the yard, walk up Wren Avenue and escape.
“When he fall on the ground and they escape, all I hear is Jahmaul hollering to help he and at that time, one of the car pull up and we put he in and it rush he to the hospital,” another worker related.
“They didn’t had to shoot the lil boy, you know. He ain’t fight back or anything, he de just sitting on the bicycle relaxing cause he does work here every day,” another said.
Jahmaul’s mother, Denessa Lewis, told Stabroek News that her son would be at the base every day as he was doing an internship for mechanical engineering. “He would be there for at least an hour every day. After he come home from school, he would go there and do some work with the other guys,” the distraught woman said.
She told Stabroek News that Jahmaul was taken to the operating theatre to undergo surgery and up to late yesterday, was in a stable condition.
The three men were able to cart off an undisclosed amount of money and some of the workers speculated on whether it was an inside job. One of the workers explained that the owner of the taxi service was in the building at the time. “It’s really strange cause he don’t come around here often so now that they do this robbery it’s weird that it was done when he was here,” one worker said.
