A pump attendant at a New Amsterdam gas station was shot in his back yesterday during a robbery that was carried out by two men.
Shazam Melville, 32, a father of four, was rushed to the New Amsterdam Public Hospital just after 9.30 am.
According to his relatives, he was shot once to his lower back.
Up to yesterday afternoon, Melville was a patient in stable condition at the New Amsterdam Public Hospital, a sister said. She also said he was conscious.
An eyewitness, Yadram Ronnie, 40, also a pump attendant at the M. Ali and Son gas station where the attack occurred, explained that he was dealing with a customer when Melville, who worked a 24-hour shift, took the cash from the safe and placed it into a haversack in order to take it to the main
office, as they would normally do.
“When he come out with the bag from the door he was collecting his book from the table when two boy ride up on a motorcycle and them tell he ‘Pass the bag, pass the bag.’”
Ronnie said at first he thought they were friends of Melville making a joke with him but it was only after one of the perpetrators pulled out a gun that he realised that they were being robbed. “I was still pumping the gas and when I see he pull out the gun and he go to scramble the bag then I go to approach and then be time that he fire a shot and I keep back,” he recounted. “That was it. He collect the bag and they gone,” he added.
Based on surveillance footage seen by Stabroek News, Melville had the haversack on his back. However, the perpetrator armed with the gun immediately after arriving hopped off of the motorcycle and tried to pull the haversack from him but Melville resisted and attempted to run away.
It was only after the bandit discharged a round that he was able to grab the haversack and escape.
A source told this newspaper that the perpetrators escaped with over $1 million in the haversack.
Commander of Region Six Linden Isles yesterday told Stabroek News, that no suspects were in custody as yet but noted that investigators were questioning a male person who was noticed around the area at the time of the robbery.
