On Tuesday morning while Prime Minister
Denzil Douglas was live on radio
speaking to the issue of gun crimes, a shopkeeper was
being gunned down in
full view of his customers. At about 11 that morning,
two masked young men
entered a Cardin Avenue liquor shop and attempted to
rob the establishment.
The owner of the shop, Courtland Carter, was shot twice
in the leg(s) and
whisked to the JNF hospital. A trail of blood on the
pavement marked where
the popular shopkeeper narrowly escaped death. According
to one of the
shaken customers present during the attempted heist,
the gunmen both wore
“tams” pulled down over their faces with holes
cut out for the eyes. “I see the
fellows come inside with mask and gun and shouting “Don’t
move!” I thought it
was a joke ’cause this is high day,” he told
The Observer.
He went on to reveal that while about 6 men and 2
women sat in the small
shop, the gunmen entered “from out of nowhere”.
He said most of the
customers ran off despite being commanded not to move
by the gun-wielding
bandits. Carter, he said, was dragged out onto the
sidewalk where he wrestled
with the two gun men as they tried to reach into his
pockets. They then forced
him to sit on the pavement, demanding his money. The
witness said he then
heard two shots and saw the 60-something-year-old
man bleeding from his leg
and groin area. While on the scene, The Observer was
told that the robbers
were not able to get Carter’s money and those
who knew him said he would
have died before giving up his hard-earned cash. It
was also said that several
persons observed the two robbers fleeing the scene,
running through a
nearby street before running in the area of the Cenotaph
near Horsford Road.
They were described as the taller male being about
17 years old while many
speculated the smaller assailant’s age to be
around 12 years. Police collected
what appeared to be two spent bullet casings from
outside the shop as other
law enforcement officers scoured the area as far east
as Irishtown. Although
many persons at the scene claimed to have seen the
two running from the
area, all said they never saw any faces. The usual
sentiments of disbelief, fear
and outrage were murmured with some saying if the
men were not armed, they
could have attacked them with “half-a-blocks”.
Just two days prior, 20-year-old
Anthony “Bounty” Williams was shot to death
in Salt Pond Alley, Basseterre as
he sat on the side of the road. He received several
gunshots about is body
and died during surgery. Police are investigating
this and other recent
shooting incidents, and are appealing to anyone with
relevant information to
contact the Criminal Investigations Department at
465-2241 ext. 220,230 or
236.
|
