Plans are apace to provide counselling to the five-year-old boy who witnessed the shoot-out between Police and three armed bandits on Thursday night.
Dead bandit: Leslie Griffith
This is according to a senior Police official close to the investigation who told Guyana Times on Friday that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) will be taking the necessary steps to ensure that the traumatised child receives “proper and adequate” counselling after being subjected to such a “horrible ordeal.”
Meanwhile, Police have since identified the third bandit as Leslie Griffith, 24, of Lot 165 William Street, Kitty, Georgetown. The man was identified when his mother turned up at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) morgue on Friday.
Griffith, along with Junior Nurse of Albouystown, and Shawn Browne Jr were all killed during a shootout with Police at a house at Norton and Victor Streets, Lodge on Thursday evening. Browne Jr is the son of the prison escapee Shawn Browne. Browne Sn was Guyana’s most wanted criminal and was among three men killed on June 5, 2003 at a house in Prashad Nagar, Georgetown, in which three grenades were lobbed at the Police.
Dead bandit: Shawn Browne Jr son of Guyana’s most wanted criminal, the late Shawn Browne
On Thursday, the three bandits swooped down on the residence of construction worker, Neville Lesley, moments after he had put his five-year-old son to bed.
Reports are at about 20:00h, while the man was closing the doors to his Lot 46 Norton and Victor Streets home, he saw someone scaling the fence but by the time he reacted, he was held at gunpoint. The gunman demanded gold and cash as he took the man into the house. By that time, the two other gunmen also made their way into the man’s home, with each of them carrying a handgun.
Hearing the commotion, the five-year-old child woke up and ran downstairs. “They tell me if I don’t keep me son quiet, they’d shoot me and meh son,” the man related.
Lesley said a relative, who recently returned from the United States, is staying at his home and the bandits had enquired about her. However as the robbery was occurring, the Police patrol which was in the area was notified and responded.
With the bandits distracted by the Police presence, Lesley and his son managed to escape and hid in one of the bedrooms, where he removed the louvres in the window and lowered his son from the upper flat of the house.
The child was safely collected by a Police Officer, and Lesley jumped through the window to safety.
Dead bandit: Junior Nurse
It was at this point that the shoot-out between the armed bandits and law enforcement commenced. According to information from residents in the area, two of the bandits were shot and appeared to be dead, while the third was also shot but surrendered to the Police.
The bodies of the two dead gunmen, along with the injured bandit, were taken to the GPHC but the third man subsequently died while receiving medical attention. The Police have since removed two handguns from the scene with several rounds of spent shells.
The killing of these three bandits comes on the heels of three other bandits being killed during a Police shoot-out in Black Bush Polder. Those three men were identified as wanted murder suspects; 32-year-old Kelvin Shivgobin, called “Kelly” of Belvedere, Corentyne, Berbice; Ramnarine Jagmohan of Belvedere Village, who was acquitted of murder; and Sewchand Sewdat, called “One Eye Pappy”, also of Belvedere, Corentyne, Berbice.
