‘The police are now treating Thursday’s attack during which two armed bandits stormed the Diamond Fire Station as an attempted robbery since they say no valuables were stolen from the victims during the incident.
Contacted for a comment yesterday, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum confirmed that an investigation has been launched. He said the incident was being investigated as an attempted robbery and not a robbery as was previously reported by Stabroek News and other sections of the media.
Blanhum said no one was in custody.
The police, in a press release issued yesterday, said that they have since obtained statements in the matter and investigators are pursuing all leads to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators who carried out the crime.
Two armed bandits on Thursday afternoon stormed the Diamond Fire Station and held five firemen at gunpoint.
This newspaper previously reported that the gunmen managed to escape with over $100,000 and a phone. However, the police yesterday denied that any valuables were taken even though the firemen who related the ordeal to this newspaper claimed they were robbed of valuables and cash.
One of the firemen, Shemroy Shaw, had told this newspaper that the incident occurred around 1.15 pm. It was 15 minutes after he made his last entry in the station’s log book that he saw two men trying to enter the Fire Station yard.
“…So I went and asked them what’s going on and what ya’ll coming in here for,” he related, adding that one of the men told him they were doing a survey, while the other walked around him. “…By the time… I turn around, he pull out a big long gun and seh shut yuh mouth don’t say nothing. After I see the gun I stepped back and they took me into the room and sat me down,” Shaw had said.
He stated that both men were armed with “big pistols,” and one of them headed to the other rooms where his colleagues were. “After he put me to sit down, he turned back and started looking where the other one was going, so I try to move and he turned back fast and said, ‘don’t move’ and he locked the doors,” Shaw added.
The other bandit roamed the station until he found fireman Orin Bancroft.
“I was in the kitchen,” Bancroft related, “and the others were in the room and he come and put the gun to my head and brought me in the room where the two others were. But when he was bringing me I notice he ain’t behind me anymore so I sprint out straight through the gate and run on the road.”
Bancroft said he started flagging down cars on the road and informing the drivers that the station was being robbed. But then one of the bandits ran out of the station with his gun, which prompted Bancroft to run in an easterly direction until he was at a safe distance from the man.
While this was happening outside, the bandit inside rounded up the rest of the men and forced them all to lie on their stomachs in the room where Shaw was, while he ransacked the room. After a few seconds, he kicked Shaw in his stomach and ran out of the yard.
From his safe vantage point, Bancroft had said that he saw when the second bandit exited the station and the two started running west along the Diamond Public Road.
Bancroft had explained that earlier in the morning he had visited Republic Bank just outside the community where he withdrew over $700,000, which was not taken by the bandits since it was in his clothes. He wasn’t sure whether he was followed, since he reached the station around 8.30 am.
However, the other firemen were speculating that he was, but because of the time of the day and the amount of traffic on the road, the men waited until the right time to attack them.
