Two shot by police

Bridgetown and St George incidents leave two would-be robbers hospitalised Two would-be robbers were shot by police after brandishing weapons in two separate incidents on Wednesday. Both were taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to receive medical treatment. The first shooting followed a brazen robbery at Sure Pay upstairs Bridgetown Duty-Free on Broad Street, The City, according to the Barbados Police Service’s Communications and Public Affairs Officer Inspector Rodney Inniss. Lawmen received a report about the robbery around 11:30 a.m. and when they responded, they saw a man who fit the given description in an area around the Barbados Public Workers’ Cooperative Credit Union Limited on Broad Street. “The individual was armed with a large knife. He was confronted by the police officers, he refused to put down the knife and eventually police had reason to discharge their firearm and he was shot once,” Inniss said. The man was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) by ambulance where he is being treated for a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Police investigators retrieved an undisclosed sum of money from the scene. Less than five hours later, around 4:10 p.m., lawmen received a report of an attempted robbery in the Glebe, St George. Inspector Inniss said that when officers arrived at the scene, the cutlass-wielding assailant had already fled. However, he was later seen and police confronted him and ordered him to drop the weapon. “He refused and advanced towards the officers who fired and struck him once in the area of his left knee. He was given medical treatment by a doctor nearby at the scene and later he was taken to the hospital by ambulance…. The weapon was seized,” Inniss said. Pedro Cox, who usually hangs out near the St George Farmers’ Cooperative outlet with a friend, told Barbados TODAY the man had tried to rob him while he was sheltering from the rain. “I stepped back under the shed to shelter from the rain and I see this man coming down with this mask covering his face and he tell  me give him what I got. He lash at me with the long sword and it hit into the corner of the shed. I came around to the front and went in the vegetable mart and tell them I wanted to make a phone call to call the police and I called the police,” he said. Investigations are continuing into both incidents. (BT)]]>