PARAMARIBO--A robber was shot to death on Saturday when he snatched a wad of money from a gas station attendant. The incident happened in the Latour residential area in southern Paramaribo, around 8:00pm.
Police report that the unidentified man had arrived at Gow2 Gas Station at Coesewijnestraat, as the passenger on a motorcycle. The attendant pumped SRD $5 of gas in the motorcycle’s tank – a little over US $1. When the men paid her, she pulled out a wad of bills to add their payment to it.
That is when the robbers attempted to snatch all of the money out of her hand. The woman, however, held on to her earnings and screamed for help as she tried to pull it out of the hands of her assailants.
An off duty officer from the Central Intelligence and Security Agency CIVD who was tanking gas for his car at another station, noticed the commotion and rushed to the woman’s aid. The robbers, realising that things would not go as easily as they had wanted, jumped back on their motorbike and tried to speed away.
Police say the CIVD officer set chase and first fired two warning shots in the air. When the robbers did not stop, he aimed at them and fired. The bullet struck the robber who was sitting behind the driver in the back. As he fell off, his accomplice managed to escape, leaving his friend to die on the roadside.
According to later police reports the escaped robber had been spotted at Goede Verwachting, a residential area a half hour’s drive from the scene of the crime. When officers went to inspect, they did indeed find the motorbike, but not the robber. Police think he is injured. “The blood spatters on the bike cause us to suspect that he was also struck by a bullet,” they said in a press release. The Capital Crimes Department is in charge of the investigation.
