Cops, civilian assaulted while trying to retrieve stolen bike

May 25, 2019 News

Four policemen and construction worker Shawn Phipps went to Leopold Street to find the construction worker’s stolen motorcycle.
Phipps and some of the ranks got a thrashing instead.
Phipps, of Bent Street, Werk-en-Rust, said several men swarmed him on Tuesday when he and the ranks entered a Leopold Street yard where he suspected the thieves had stashed his Scrambler motorcycle.
He said the men struck him with a steel rod and kicked and punched him in the presence of the ranks.
Phipps, who sustained head and other injuries, said he eventually “blacked out,” and had to be treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
He later learnt that some of the ranks were also assaulted.
Police are reportedly still looking for the suspects, including an alleged ringleader known as ‘Barney.’
The Bent Street resident said that at around 22.00 hrs on Sunday, he parked his motorcycle, which cost $427,000, in the yard where he lives.
He also secured it with a chain.
The following day, his motorcycle was gone.
Although it was parked near to a neighbour’s open window, the neighbour reportedly said she saw nothing unusual.
However, Phipps said that he was able to obtain video images that showed two men pushing his bike out of the yard around 02.30 hrs on Monday.
The security footage reportedly showed one of the thieves heading into Leopold Street with Phipps’s bike.
On Tuesday, the construction worker said he went to Leopold Street, where he spotted two men with what appeared to be the seat and tank that had been stripped from his motorcycle.
Phipps relayed this information to a police sergeant at the Brickdam Police Station. The ranks also obtained the security camera footage of the thieves.
Four junior ranks then accompanied Phipps back to the area.
According to Phipps, when they were approaching the area, one of the men in the yard began ‘signaling’, in an apparent attempt to alert his accomplices.
Phipps said that as soon as they entered the yard, “four or five” men encircled him. He recounted that the ranks appeared to know one of the men, whom they addressed as ‘Barney.’
“They say ‘Barney, lef that man’; I seeing (motorcycle) parts and was checking the parts.
“Then I said, ‘they (the bike spares) got to be in that cottage.’” With that, one of the men struck him in the head with a steel rod.
In the presence of the ranks, the men reportedly also kicked and punched him, while also riffling his pockets and removing his wallet.
He said he eventually blacked out, and the ranks took him to GPHC.
Phipps has since been discharged, but said he is still suffering from headaches.
A senior police official acknowledged that the individual called ‘Barney’ was known to the police.
However, the individual is reportedly still to be apprehended.

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