Policeman found dead after chasing escapee

Jun 11, 2013 News

… believed electrocuted by illegal connection

A Police Constable collapsed and died under mysterious circumstances while chasing after an escaping bandit early yesterday morning.

Dead: Constable Dorwin Pitman

Constable 21600 Dorwin Pitman, who was attached to the Prashad Nagar Police Outpost, was discovered lying motionless in an alleyway at North Sophia minutes after he pursued a bandit who had bolted from the lock-ups.
While there were no immediate indication of what might have caused Pitman’s death, police believe that he was electrocuted by the several illegal wires that criss-crossed the alley through which he pursued the escaping suspect.
However, they will await the results of a post mortem examination to guide their investigations.
Police in a press release stated that Constable Pitman was found lying on the ground in an alleyway. He was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
The police statement explained that around 07:30am, Constable Pitman went to the lockups at the Prashad Nagar Outpost to feed prisoners, when one of them, Akeem Edwards pushed down the rank and ran out of the Outpost.
“Constable Pitman and another rank gave chase behind the escaping bandit, during which Pitman was subsequently found in the alleyway. Edwards was in the lockup for possession of narcotics and was scheduled for court yesterday,” the police statement said.
Acting Commissioner of Police Leroy Brumell expressed deep shock at the young cop’s passing.
“His death is a great loss and very painful for us in the Guyana Police Force. He desperately tried to get back the prisoner,” Brumell told Kaieteur News.
This newspaper understands that Pitman was supposed to be working with a subordinate officer but that rank reported sick.
However, another off duty rank was in the barrack room at the outpost when the prisoner made his dash for freedom.
According to reports, Constable Pitman did not have on his police regulation boots when he pursued the prisoner; in fact, he was only wearing a pair of slippers.
A police source informed that Pitman and the other off duty rank went in different directions in pursuit of the fleeing prisoner.
It was not until after the other rank came back to the direction that Pitman went, that he saw him lying on the ground with his service revolver and six live rounds still in his possession.
“The man (prisoner) apparently knows the area. If you see wire! And besides, the place was wet,” a senior police official told this newspaper, although he avoided concluding that Pitman was electrocuted.
Yesterday, when Kaieteur News visited the wet and muddy alleyway where Pitman’s body was found, there was not a soul in sight, nor were there signs of illegal wires.

The dead man’s mother, Stacy Pitman

One man who was standing about three corners from the scene recalled seeing two ranks chasing after a man early yesterday morning.
“I see a man run and then I see two policemen behind him and then a little after I hear the policeman run on an electrical wire and die,” the man claimed.
Pitman, a father of a five-month-old baby and a two-year-old of Lot 23 North Road, Bourda served the Guyana Police Force for the past two years. He was previously stationed at the Brickdam Police Station and was transferred to the Outpost a few months ago.
No one from the Prashad Nagar Outpost was willing to speak to the media but investigators were seen in front of the building pointing in different directions, probably trying to figure out the route the cops took.
At the GPHC yesterday, Pitman’s mother, Stacy Pitman was inconsolable. She along with other grieving relatives stood in front of the hospital’s mortuary in tears.
“An officer came to my house this morning and ask me my name and I told him and he ask if my son name Dorwin Pitman and I said yes. He told me that my son died this morning. He said that my son didn’t have no gunshot wound and no marks of violence and that he is at the hospital,” the weeping mother recalled.
She said that the officer explained to her that her son and another rank were chasing after a prisoner. “He said that the two police took a different route and when the other one come to the location my son took, he saw him lying on the ground.”
The woman said she last saw her son Sunday night when he left home for work. “He was suppose to come home today (yesterday) but look what happened. They should really stop with this illegal connection, look how I lost my son.’
Meanwhile the police have launched a manhunt for the escaped prisoner.

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