Mother of dead robbery suspect says she won’t swear for son’s activities

DeadGeorgetown: Forty-Two- year-old Dian Blackman, the mother of dead robbery suspect Edgar Blackman, said that she will not swear for her son as she is never with him 24/7 and was not with him Wednesday morning when bandits who were cornered chose to engage in a shootout with Police at Pioneer Lane, South Ruimveldt.

The woman said, however, that efforts should have been made by the Police to bring her son in alive since she was told that he was not armed at the time he was shot by ranks, but she reiterated that she was not there.

Underscoring her son’s activities, the woman said that he had no children and was up to the time of his death working with one of the sub-contractors executing the cleanup campaign around Georgetown.

Blackman said that she last saw her son on Tuesday while she was leaving for the Georgetown Public Hospital to visit her daughter who recently gave birth. She said further that she did not see him again that day even when she got home in the evening.

The mother also works with a sub-contractor in the city cleanup and is stationed at Le Repentir. Asked how she knew about his death, the mother said that she was at home Wednesday morning when one of the young man’s close friends passed by and informed that there was a shootout in South Ruimveldt and he was told that Edgar had been shot and killed but he could not confirm that information. The woman said that she immediately began ringing her son’s phone but received no answer. She then went to the Georgetown Public Hospital to look for him but he was not there and she turned up at Lyken Funeral Parlour but was unable to find his body. Subsequently, she returned to the hospital where she saw her son’s body in the morgue.

Asked what her son was doing on the road in the wee hours, the woman explained that he would sometimes leave his home to visit his girlfriend some distance away. She then acknowledged that her son had been picked up by the Police recently and held for questioning in relation to a robbery. He was held for the stipulated 72 hours and released without any charges. Asked if she ever noticed her son with a firearm, she responded in the negative.

Edgar Blackman was one of the bandits killed when police cornered four men after they had broken into a woman’s home and carried out a robbery, taking away a few items. The Police were informed and raced to the area and while reports suggested that three others got away. Two who were fatally shot had engaged in an exchange of gunfire with the Police. Police are said to be investigating the matter and are looking for the other suspects who managed to escape.

The Police recovered an unlicensed 9mm Luger pistol with 3 matching rounds and an unlicensed .38 revolver with 4 matching rounds and 2 spent shells from the perpetrators.