Police mum on 'Blackie's' post-mortem


Stabroek News
February 16, 2000


The police are refusing to divulge the results of the post-mortem examinations which were conducted on Linden London, better known as 'Blackie' and Rhonda Forde who died during last week's shoot-out at the Toucan Guest House at Eccles, East Bank Demerara.

Both, Stabroek News understands, died from shock due to haemorrhage and shock as a result of multiple gunshot wounds.

Police spokesman, Senior Superintendent Ivelaw Whittaker, was unable to provide any information and Crime Chief Floyd McDonald said that he was not speaking to the media.

The Guyana Defence Force has also clammed up, with Public Affairs Officer, Capt Wycliffe McAllister, explaining that the army had said all that it had to say on the events of last Wednesday morning.

Forde was killed on Tuesday night and London on Wednesday morning, cut down in a hail of bullets after he was persuaded to come out of the burning apartment in which he had been trapped for more than 11 hours by police and army units.

There were reports that Forde had been shot in the back by the London but with the police refusing to comment on the report, it cannot be verified at this point .

Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj, told Stabroek News on Monday that the preliminary reports he had received indicated that both army and police personnel shot at London when he came out of the burning building.

Stabroek News understands that the post-mortem would have revealed, based on the bullet wounds London received, the calibre of the weapons used and so clear up this query. It would have cleared up too whether or not London had been injured following the America Street robbery as the police had claimed.

London was wanted by the police dead or alive in connection with two murders and at least 14 robberies he was alleged to have committed. One of the robberies he was said to have committed was the daring mid-morning plunder of an America Street cambio and cambio dealer in September last year. He had also been suspected of involvement in the early morning, $13 million heist at the Brickdam office of the National Insurance Scheme in January this year.