Beaten suspected robber leads police to gun, cellphones

Last Updated on Monday, 22 August 2016, 6:27 by Denis Chabrol

One of the suspects in what appeared to have been a planned robbery at a grocery has led investigators to the discovery of a handgun, police said.

“The male accomplice who was taken into police custody, admitted to being in company of the deceased and took investigators to a location at Pearl Village, East Bank Demerara where he handed over a .380 Beretta pistol with six matching rounds, along with two cellular phones,” the Guyana Police Force said in a statement.

The discovery of the gun and phones were made less than one day after residents and police at Johanna, East Bank Demerara had heard loud explosions coming from a thickly vegetated area into which he and his now dead accomplice had fled.

Dead is Seon “Cash Money” Clarke of Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara.

Police said Clarke was shot by one of several public spirited citizens and his accomplice beaten, treated at a city hospital and discharged into police custody.

President David Granger has since expressed concern about the resort to vigilantism, warning that it could “get out of hand.” “We can’t tolerate that. We accept that citizens have a right to protect their property and so on and we expect people to be organised in CPGs – the Community Policing Groups- but we can’t tolerate vigilantism especially when it results in the injury or death of anybody,” he said Sunday night shortly after leaving the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission awards ceremony.

A grocer Saturday raised an alarm after seeing the duo acting in a suspicious manner, went on the street and raised an alarm. Police, who were nearby, joined residents in giving chase but the suspects ran into a bushy area. When they emerged Saturday night they were caught and Clarke was shot while his accomplice was thrashed.

Up to late Sunday night, ‘A’ Division Commander, Assistant Commissioner Marlon Chapman said police were looking for the shooter.

Two other bandits were badly beaten last week in a botched robbery on a barber at North Ruimveldt, Georgetown.