On the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), police have charged two East La Penitence residents with manslaughter over the killing of Ardell Haynes and they are scheduled to make their first court appearance today.
A police press release last evening said that following investigations into the death of the 43-year-old South Ruimveldt resident, Urdock Reid and Keith Binns have been charged with man-slaughter. They will appear at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court today, the release added. Reid was hailed a local hero in July, 2006 when he had plunged into a cesspit at Tucville to rescue five-year-old Briana Dover, though she did not survive.
Reid was one of the four men initially held for the fatal beating of Haynes, but released when the 72 hours permitted by the law were up.
The police, at this point, submitted a file to the DPP for advice on the way forward and were last week instructed to conduct further investigations.
This was done and it was based on additional evidence that Reid was rearrested and Binns subsequently held.
Three Tuesdays ago, as the electrician was making his way home on a bicycle from a birthday party held at a Norton Street residence, several persons pounced on him and beat him mercilessly.
They had assumed that he was the burglar who had broken into a house in Pirai Square, East La Penitence minutes earlier, and attempted to cart off a television set. That person dropped the item after an alarm was raised and escaped through a nearby alleyway. Subsequently a group of persons took a badly wounded Haynes to the Pirai Square home for identification saying that he was found staggering on a street in Meadow Brook.
The man was later taken to the East La Penitence Police Station and left in the yard between traffic motorcycles in the drizzling rain.
His wife said that when she called the station for information, the female rank at the other end of the line was uncaring and unmannerly. The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has since launched an investigation into the alleged negligence and misconduct of the ranks at the station.
Haynes was pronounced dead at the Georgetown Hospital and a post-mortem examination revealed that he died from multiple injuries.
Two residents of a nearby street had told Stabroek News that they witnessed the incident and one had identified two of the assailants as persons living in the area.
This incident mirrors one that occurred at Soesdyke in November, in which 35-year-old Rickford Barker was beaten to death by residents after he was caught attempting to break into a shop.
Five men were charged with murder but only three appeared in court. The others are still at large.
The charge was later reduced to manslaughter.
