Photographer robbed at gunpoint near bustling Vlissengen Road

A popular photographer and former media worker was this morning robbed by a bicycle bandit at gunpoint just off Vlissengen Road, Georgetown, where policemen were at the time stationed there for the presidential entourage headed for the Botanical Gardens.

Dwayne Hackett was going to a nearby shop when he noticed a man on a bicycle coming in the opposite direction along the street.

“(He) stopped for what I thought was to urinate from his posture but then I thought it strange that someone would want to urinate on a vehicle but it was a gun he pulled out and I heard the gun being cocked as (he) turned to me and demanded, ‘Gimme all that yuh gah’,” the victim related in a social media post.

Hackett said he gave the bandit all the money he had in his possession, which was $2200 which he was going to use to purchase coffee and other items.

“That he took. I quietly walked away as he rode off on his bicycle. I did not look back to see where he went,” he stated.

Hackett said he then came upon a policeman about 100m away on Vlissengen Road but the officer advised him to make an official report at a police station. The policeman was only on the road at that time for the presidential motorcade which was going to the Botanical Gardens for an event to mark the 32nd death anniversary of Forbes Burnham.

“I really feel it’s a waste of time to go to the station. I’m ok and glad to be alive,” Hackett said in his post.

Nonetheless, he eventually gave a statement to the police and an investigation is underway.