Police hold girl from dead suspects' car
Raid home in Albert St
By Samantha Alleyne
Stabroek News
October 30, 2002
A teenaged girl is now in police custody after miraculously escaping from the bullet-riddled car in which two bandits were killed on Monday morning on the Annandale Public Road.
The girl has been identified as 16-year-old Candace Lowe of 16 Joseph Pollydore Street. She sustained only minor injuries and is now in police custody assisting them in their investigations.
Lowe was in the car with prison escapee Mark Fraser and Lancelot Roach, owner of a communications equipment business in Orange Walk, Bourda. The two in Roach's green Toyota Sprinter, PHH 7248 were shot dead reportedly by rival gunmen in an oncoming car at Annandale.
The men were shot soon after another prison escapee, Dale Moore and another man were killed during a shoot-out between police and gunmen in the Bel Air/Lamaha Gar-dens area.
Police Public Relations Officer, Assistant Superintendent David Ramnarine yesterday said the young woman was treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital but has since been released and is now in police custody.
Stabroek News understands that Lowe was shot in the hand and she was taken to the hospital by the police and was under police guard during her stay at the hospital.
According to a reliable source the young woman has since told the police that she used to be a visitor to the house in Bonasika Street, Campbellville where the police discovered 12 channa bombs, a car, a receipt for another car and four live rounds of ammunition.
The source told this newspaper that the girl said she was friendly with a young man there but gave no more information on the man.
It is understood that after the shooting incident the girl somehow managed to escape and made her way to the Beterverwagting Police Station from where she was taken to the hospital for treatment.
The source said the police are now questioning the girl to determine what she was doing in the car with the escapee. However, it was stated that it is more than likely that the young woman would be released sometime shortly.
And a 29-year-old man who was once the neighbour of the girl, while she lived with relatives in Albert Street, is now threatening legal action against the police after the way he says he was treated on Monday.
The man, who did not want his name mentioned, said that at around 3 pm on Monday he was in his bedroom with his 11-month-old baby when two policemen with large guns barged into his room. He said that at the time he was just about to leave for work and was playing with his baby when he heard his reputed wife question, "Wah is this?" As he turned to her to see what she was talking about he was met with two guns trained at him by policemen who said, "don't f...ing move." According to the young man the policemen then asked him who was living in the house and he asked them if they could not see who was living in the home. "With that, brap I get a cuff to me face fo no reason at all," the man said. He said that the officers also went into the front room where his sister-in-law was sleeping and woke her up ransacking the room at the same time. "I don't know what deh de looking fo but they just tumble up everything," the man told Stabroek News yesterday. He said that the policemen then ordered he and his sister-in-law out of the house telling them that they were being taken to Brickdam Police Station for questioning. He said when him left his house he was greeted with about three van loads of policemen who were parked in front of his home.
He later learnt that the men kicked down his neighbour's house door but no one was there. It was in this house Lowe lived with her relatives who yesterday declined to speak to this newspaper.
Stabroek News understands that the law enforcement officers ransacked the home and left with a number of photographs.
The man said he has a brother who is a member of the Guyana Defence Force and he had some of his military clothing at home and the police also took those.
At Brickdam the man said they were made to sit in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and were questioned at length separately.
The man said it was sometime after that the police brought a photograph of one of Lowe's female relatives and asked if he knew her. He said that he replied in the affirmative and the officers then showed him a photograph of Lowe and when he said he also knew her they asked him if he knew where she lived.
The man said that when he told the officers he did not know where the young woman lived they became very annoyed and told him they saw him speaking with the girl in the past at the corner of Albert and Charlotte Streets.
"I know Candace since she was a baby and I does gaff with her but da is all. I tell them I was talking to her about me wedding and they tell me that if me ent talk the truth I mightn't live to see me wedding," the man said. He said that Candace had moved out of the area sometime earlier this year.
After about two hours he and his sister-in-law were released from the station. The man said the manner in which the police handled the incident was very unprofessional and he pointed out that he had been cuffed three times in the face for no reason at all.
Meanwhile, the two women who were held by the police during a raid at an apartment building at Lot 17 D'Urban Street were also released on Monday afternoon.
The police had kicked down the doors of the three apartments in the building and after ransacking two, apprehended two women from the other and also took some photographs and telephones in their possession. One of the women yesterday told Stabroek News that at Brickdam Police Station she was questioned by the officers as to whether she knew Shawn Brown, one of the prison escapees. "I tell them me ent know nothing about Shawn Brown except wah me see in the papers and on tv," the woman said. She said that it is only after a senior police officer, who is a friend of her father, instructed the policemen to release them that they were let go. She said while the officers returned the telephones they kept the photographs, one of her stepfather, brother and a friend in Barbados.