Better police/army coordination may have seen results - official
Ng-See-Quan recovering - doctor
Stabroek News
June 15, 2002
A lack of coordination between the police and the army may have contributed to the getaway of the gang of bandits who murdered a Vergenoegen businesswoman on Thursday morning, before fleeing via the river.
Sixty-year-old Claudette Ng-See-Quan, of Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo was shot dead, while her husband, Hilton, is currently a patient of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. A release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said yesterday that Ng-See-Quan "is showing positive signs of recovery."
GINA said Quan, a former PNC parliamentarian, was resting when Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, along with PPP/C General Secretary Donald Ramotar visited him in the Intensive Care Unit yesterday.
Ng-See-Quan was shot in "his lower limbs and abdomen", GINA said. The abdominal gunshot wounds led to some damage to Ng-See-Quan’s left kidney, which has been repaired. Dr Madan Rambarran, director of Medical and Professional Services, who is attending to the wounded man, says Ng-See-Quan "is doing quite well and we are expecting him to make a full recovery."
Although the army and police had announced that the two agencies were working together to combat the current crime wave, an army official told this newspaper yesterday that the Guyana Defence Force had not been contacted by the police until some three hours after the attack on the Ng-See-Quans. That official said: "If information had reached [the army] early, [the GDF] could have helped" in the river chase of the bandits. The GDF has four motor boats which it obtained from the US and a reconverted minesweeper sourced from the UK. Since the incident, the GDF Coast Guard has intensified its river patrols.
Reports reaching Stabroek News suggest that the attack on the Ng-See-Quans lasted some 20-30 minutes.
Two police stations - one at Leonora, West Coast Demerara and another at Parika, East Bank Essequibo - are each within 15 minutes of the crime scene, but residents claim that the law enforcement officers arrived after the bandits had made good their escape.
"So many things could have been done [but] they [the police] were slow to react.
They should have made contact with (GDF) headquarters and the helicopter could have moved immediately," the official stated.
Reports said that between 12 and 15 armed bandits invaded the couple’s Quan Street home at about 0125 hrs on Thursday, while discharging several rounds and killing one of the nine guard dogs in the process.
The heavily-armed attackers, all dressed in dark colours, reportedly scaled the nine-foot, fortress-like fence surrounding the riverside property and carted off over $400,000 in cash, along with a 12-gauge shotgun and two pistols - one a 9 mm and the other, a .32.
In their escape bid, the bandits also tried to hijack a 35-foot fishing boat, which was moored nearby. Instead, they carted off a $500,000 `Yamaha’ engine belonging to Deonarine Boodwah called `Shammie’, who had just returned from a seven-day fishing expedition.
The sawmiller’s wife is the latest civilian to be murdered by bandits since the February 23, jailbreak of five men. (Kim Lucas)