Latest update February 10th, 2025 7:48 AM
Cop killed after stopping suspicious car
Dead cop: Romain Cleto
Police have launched a massive manhunt for a gunman in a silver-coloured car who gunned down one of their colleagues in the busy downtown Georgetown area.
Corporal Romain Cleto, 25, was riddled with bullets and later pronounced dead at the Georgetown Public Hospital where he was rushed by his colleagues.
Two other policemen Anil Raj Persaud, 28, of Claybrick Road, Number Two Canal was cut by flying glass, and Randy Haley, 20, of Mahaicony sustained gunshot injuries to his left hand after a gunman sprayed their patrol vehicle with bullets. The incident occurred around 18:40 hours on the busy Avenue of the Republic near Regent Street, just outside the Bank of Baroda.
Police in a brief press release said that ranks of a mobile police patrol came under fire from the occupants of a motor vehicle in the vicinity of Regent Street and Avenue of the Republic, Georgetown.
“Corporal 20196 Romain Cleto was fatally shot, while Constable 21240 Randy Daly was shot and injured to his left arm and Constable 21144 Anil Persaud was injured by glass from the shattered windscreen. The injured ranks are being treated at the hospital,” the police statement said.
Miraculously, there are no reports of anyone else being wounded although the area, which is adjacent to the Plaisance/Turkeyen Bus Park is usually busy around that time of the evening.
There were bloodstains on the pavement while bullet holes were clearly visible on the eastern wall of the bank.
Several spent 7.62 rounds and nine millimeter shell casings littered the scene and although several off-duty police ranks converged at the location, they did very little to secure the evidence.
Last night’s brazen attack brought back vivid memories of the early 21st century crime spree that saw several policemen losing their lives.
“Dem men just shoot up like if dey deh in a war,” one eyewitness stated at the scene. Kaieteur News understands that Cleto and his colleagues were on patrol when they spotted a suspicious looking silver-coloured car and trailed it with a view to engaging the occupants.
“The car had a paper over the licence plate,” an eyewitness told Kaieteur News. The eyewitness said that when the car stopped at the traffic light at the junction of Regent Street and Avenue of the Republic, the police decided to approach the occupants.
Cleto, who was in charge of the patrol, came out of the police vehicle and approached the car not realizing the danger that was waiting for him. Within seconds one of the occupants of the car began shooting, mortally wounding Cleto while spraying the police vehicle with bullets.
“While de corporal going to de car, de driver come out and start spraying bullets like he head ain’t good,” one source informed this newspaper.
The bullet riddled car
There are reports that the driver of the police vehicle managed to return fire with his Beretta submachine, possibly wounding the gunman. The car then sped away north along Avenue of the Republic.
Cleto’s sister, Maureen, told Kaieteur News through tears that she received a telephone call from a Police Officer who was at the Georgetown Public Hospital, informing her that her brother was involved in an accident.
She said that she initially thought that the officer was referring to a vehicular accident, and she and other relatives rushed to the hospital. There she was greeted with the news that her brother had succumbed to gunshot injuries.
“We don’t know what really happened; all we know is what they (police) tell we,” Maureen Cleto said.
Several persons at the scene described last night’s shooting as a brief mini war.
“With all dem people wha does deh out hey, thank God nobody else ain’t dead,” an onlooker at the scene stated. Several of the policeman’s colleagues converged at the hospital upon learning of what had transpired.
Cleto who originally hails from the North West District was the father of a one-year-old daughter.
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