Man shot, four held in Buxton operations
Army was following Shawn Brown tip
Stabroek News
May 19, 2003
One man was shot and injured in Buxton yesterday morning and four others later arrested as the army pursued a tip on February 23 escapee Shawn Brown and continued intensive operations in the crime-ridden village with the police.
Three cordon and search operations were conducted yesterday morning and afternoon resulting in four persons being arrested in connection with two motor-cycles that are suspected to have been stolen.
This newspaper understands that the joint services operation was also aimed at capturing all the persons believed to be involved in the kidnapping of De Hoop businessman, Viticharan Singh, who was rescued from a house in Buxton on Saturday morning by a police/army team.
The man who was hospitalised yesterday after being shot in the army/police operation is Deon Gordon, 23, of 64 Church of God Road, Buxton. He was shot in the left thigh and right arm.
Stabroek News understands that the man, who was admitted to the hospital yesterday morning, underwent an operation and doctors were forced to amputate his right arm which was badly damaged by the bullet.
According to the GDF's Communication Officer, Staff Sergeant Stanford Conway, Gordon was arrested with a quantity of marijuana which was in a black bag he had in his possession at the time.
Conway told Stabroek News that at around 8:45 am a GDF patrol was on the Church of God Road when it observed Gordon riding alongside another man acting in a suspicious manner.
While Gordon's companion rode off, Gordon stopped at a house on the said road and after spending about five minutes inside the house he emerged with a black bag which appeared to be dirty.
The GDF patrol challenged the man and commanded him to stop but he continued riding and turned south into Middle Street and headed towards the embankment. The patrol challenged him for the second time as it followed him and he again refused to stop. Instead, he placed his hand into the bag as if to pull out something. Sensing that the man might be armed a soldier fired two shots in his direction hitting him on the thigh and arm.
He was taken to the hospital and was later handed over to the police. The bag was searched and the illegal drug discovered.
In another incident, Conway said that around 4:45 am the army and police conducted a cordon and search operation on Church of God Road, south of the public road, during which ten houses were searched.
The operation was launched based on information gathered by the GDF's intelligence department and resource personnel.
It is understood that the GDF learnt that a female who is believed to be an accomplice of the gang that kidnapped Singh was in one of the houses. However, from all indications the woman got wind of the operation and fled the area.
Shortly after, another operation was conducted on the same road but this time over the railway embankment where two houses were checked. The police and army were at the time in search of a man known only as `Chip Teeth'. However, like the first operation the officers turned up empty-handed as the man was nowhere to be found.
Undaunted, the officers conducted another search at around 2 pm yesterday afternoon on the said road around one hundred metres west of the embankment. During this operation two houses were searched and four men were arrested.
The operation was launched based on information that two stolen motor-cycles were in the houses and one of them fitted the description of the one used by February 23 prison escapee, Brown.
The search unearthed a brown and black CBR 600S4, 2000 model and a Star Free FD 125 T-6 black scooter which is said to have been recently sprayed over since its original colour was red.
Those in custody are a 26-year-old mechanic of 49 Middle Walk, Buxton, a 23-year-old of 23 Middle Street, Buxton, a 27-year-old mason of Samantha Point, East Bank Demerara and a 21-year-old employee of a security service.
The men are being held because they were in the two homes where the suspected stolen motorcycles were found.
The army and police stepped up operations in Buxton last week following the kidnapping of Singh and one soldier, Shemton Dodson was killed in a gunfight in which a wanted man, Mark Anthony Phillips, also died.
