A teenaged boy was shot dead yesterday afternoon during a robbery in Dazzell Housing Scheme, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
The police have not yet confirmed the identity of the dead boy but relatives of 15-year-old Leon McCurdy, of Kitty, say they have been told that he is the one who was shot. Several of McCurdy’s relatives turned up at the Lyken Funeral Home to identify the body yesterday afternoon but were told that they could not do so without the permission and presence of the police.
According to reports, three teenaged boys descended upon a shop run from the bottom flat of a house situated at 851 Fourth Street, Dazzell Housing Scheme. The youth, believed to be McCurdy, was shot dead by the homeowner while his two accomplices escaped unscathed.
Eon Evans, owner of the shop, told reporters that he went upstairs at around 1:30pm yesterday to relax with his wife and 19-month-old baby when he heard his back door creak open. Upon investigating the cause of the noise, the businessman was greeted by two armed bandits. The bandit alleged to be McCurdy was armed with a pair of scissors while the other was carrying a gun.
What Evans did not know was that his son was also being engaged by bandits in the shop downstairs. The boy, 17, told Stabroek News that a young man came into the shop under the guise of a customer wanting to buy a bag of sugar. He said shortly after he was asked about the purchase, the dogs started to bark and he also heard tumbling in the yard. The boy said that he was about to investigate the noise when the customer brandished his weapon and told him, “Don’t turn or else ah gon shoot yuh.”
Despite the threat, the boy said that he ran to the shop’s entrance and was met by another armed intruder who ordered him into the shop and asked him for his father. The query about the bag of sugar was the distraction which allowed the two other intruders to scale a wall inside the yard which restricts access to the shop’s entrance and the stairway which leads to the house’s upper flat.
Initially, the boy told the intruders that his father was not around, but eventually told them that he was upstairs after they told him they knew he was at home. At this point, two of the intruders proceeded up the stairs in search of the boy’s parents, and the other placed him to lie face down and stood guard over him with a gun.
Evans said that when he was confronted by the bandits, they demanded that he turn over his gun, and that he give them all of the money in the house.
The man explained that when he saw the intruders, he threw his hands up in surrender and they removed a gold band that he was wearing at the time. They then took him into the bedroom, where he had been relaxing with his wife and demanded that the couple turn over all their money.
There was no money to be found upstairs and Evans said that he told the intruders that they would have to go back downstairs if they wanted the money. “One of them with the gun push me and carry me downstairs and when I meet downstairs I see another one with a gun to me son, saying, ‘Ah gon shoot de youth.’ I seh, ‘Man, don’t shoot de youth man. Just check in the box and see weh de money deh,’” Evans recounted.
He said that the intruder who brought him downstairs and the one who was guarding his son then proceeded to ransack the drawers in the shop. Apparently unsatisfied with what they found in the shop, the two bandits asked for more money but then left without their accomplice after they were told they had already taken all the money that was in the house.
Evans said that after the men left, he ran upstairs to check on his wife and baby and was stunned to find that the scissors-wielding bandit still with his wife. While Evans was downstairs dealing with the two other assailants, the intruder had managed to bind his wife’s feet, hands and mouth with scotch tape. “I seh, ‘Man, wuh you doin up hey, still? You ain’t see dem man done gone? You gah come out this place.” Evans, who is a licensed-firearm holder, said that when the intruder turned to leave, he rushed for his gun and discharged it at him.
Evan’s 17-year-old son, who followed his father upstairs before locking himself in his room, recalled hearing a “loud explosion,” and said that when he came outside he saw one of the intruders lying on the ground.
Evans said that he then ran to his veranda, where he observed the other two bandits escaping through Second Street. He said that he fired at them and they turned and returned fire. No one was injured in the exchange.
It is believed that all three bandits were caught on camera as they carried out the robbery since Evans has several security cameras installed at various locations around his premises.
Meanwhile, McCurdy’s relatives and friends began to flock the Lyken Funeral Parlour after they told that he was shot. One relative said that when he heard of the shooting he and several others raced to the Georgetown Public Hospital to await McCurdy’s arrival.
After the boy’s relatives were informed that the boy who was shot had died, they rushed to the funeral home, where they were met with even more relatives and several of his friends.
Things got heated as several of the McCurdy’s friends insisted on viewing the body to confirm that is was him who was shot. After they were told that they could not see the body without police supervision, several of the boy’s friends became irate and stormed past the gate which leads to the freezer which holds the corpses.
Police ranks were called to the scene but by the time they arrived the persons who had caused the ruckus had already left.
