POLICE Constable Dave ’Smiley’ James remained at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in stable condition yesterday after sustaining several gunshot wounds while attempting to prevent a robbery at a Curepe pharmacy on Monday.

The bandits who shot him were still on the run up to last night, police said.

Now whether PC James’s lone intervention in a robbery was the correct procedure or not remains to be determined but according to retired Snr Supt Errol Denoon, ’he (the officer) has to make that judgment call and if everything works out the way he wants it he will be called a hero but if it doesn’t well...’

A witness had said on Monday that around 1.30 p.m. James saw a robbery in progress at the Complete Care Pharmacy in Curepe Junction.

He was on duty at the time, was armed and wearing a bullet-resistant vest, the witness said.

The officer went into the pharmacy and subdued the bandit with a gun butt lash, according to the witness.

He did not realise two accomplices were outside. They ran in and shot him. All three then escaped with an undisclosed sum of cash, the witness said.

James in the meantime was operated on Monday afternoon and then sent to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit where he spent the night.

He was moved to the surgical ward yesterday morning, police said.

There are, however, conflicting accounts of what happened.

Another man (who asked that he not be named) said yesterday that James walked into the drugstore when all three bandits were inside. He said that when the bandits saw James they began shooting at him. James was thrown to the ground as he was shot at close range. The gunshots also shattered the pharmacy’s large, tinted window pane at the front of the building, the other witness said.

The man said while James was on the pharmacy floor he dropped his service pistol. The bandits in the meantime ran out. The pistol, however was picked up, kept safe and then returned to the police, he added.

Several of Curepe’s regular limers came to James’s aid that afternoon. One man who spoke to the Express said that he saw a government vehicle passing by and called out to its driver.

That vehicle was then used to take PC James to the Mt Hope Hospital. The initial report was that an ambulance was summoned to the scene.