The Chief Security Officer of the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL) was shot dead yesterday during an illegal connection raid at the Lamaha Park squatting area, in Georgetown.
Clifford Peters, of Essequibo Street, Lamaha Springs (Joint Services Housing Scheme), died shortly after one of two armed men shot him in the neck, chest and about his body. He was rushed to the Davis Memorial Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Police, in a press statement issued last evening, said they were investigating the murder, which occurred at Lamaha Park around 11.30 am. Investigations, they said, revealed that Peters and other GPL personnel were engaged in the removal of illegal electricity connections, when two men approached linesman Allan Savory.
An argument developed and Savory called out to Peters who intervened and was shot multiple times by one of the men. The men, according to the police, escaped with Peters’ licensed revolver. Meanwhile, a senior police source stressed that the motive of the attack was not robbery. As a result of the argument, the source explained, a scuffle ensued between Peters and one of the attackers who subsequently shot him.
Police were still present at the scene conducting investigations shortly before 1 pm yesterday. Several residents, still shocked, stood around. Many reported hearing a number of gunshots and several witnessed the attack but remained silent out of fear. “…It was like the wild, wild west out here,” one woman, who declined to identify herself, said. “I was in my house when I hear the gunshots… was nine in all.”
An eyewitness reported seeing two men approach Peters and Savory, who were close to an electricity pole at the time. “I ain’t see them too good because I been a distance away,” the eyewitness reported. “But I remember seeing some attempt to take jewellery off him [Peters] when they had he lying on the ground.” Peters was reportedly “strung [with] a lot [of jewellery].”
Peters reportedly lost his footing during the argument, fell to the ground and then was shot several times, the eyewitness recalled, and as the attackers escaped into the bushy area behind the squatting area they discharged several more rounds.
One woman said that before the shooting, she had seen two men in a tree across from where the GPL employees were working. Police attempted to question the same woman and her son but they protested and refused to cooperate.
Immediately after shooting an alarm was raised and the injured man was immediately rushed to the medical institution. His body was subsequently taken to the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour, where grieving relatives gathered after being informed of what had happened. “Is his line of work cause him to get shoot,” Peters’ grieving wife said. They had been married for 36 years.
Illegal connections
Peters, a former senior superintendent of police and chief election officer, “was at the time executing his duties as a member of the Loss Reduction Field Service team,” GPL said in a press statement issued several hours after the incident. The team, according to GPL, was in the Lamaha Park area removing illegal connections when “they were ambushed and came under attack by gunfire.”
The GPL release further stated that “Peters was forced to the ground and shot at point-blank range in the head” and died on the spot. Savory, they said, was also forced to the ground at gunpoint but managed to escape. The attack was witnessed by other team members.
GPL, the release said, extends its condolences to the relatives of Peters. The company is encouraging persons with information that may lead to the capture of the perpetrators to contact the police.
Chairman of the GPL Board, Winston Brassington, had highlighted at a press conference held last Thursday that during the 2007-2008 period, over 23,000 illegal connections were identified and removed by loss reduction crews.
“Despite approximately 800 arrests over this period, only two persons have been sent to jail. GPL routinely carries out raids to detect illegal connections,” Brassington had said. During 2007/2008 over 370 raids were conducted by the company.
Peters, GPL said, had led a number of these exercises.
Over 300 Albouystown households suspected to be stealing electricity from GPL were targeted in a recent loss reduction campaign, which started on March 2. During the Albouystown campaign, the Loss Reduction Units, unlike the one headed led by Peters yesterday, were provided with heavy security by the police.
However, yesterday’s disconnection project targeted just a single pole which had generated a steady string of complaints to GPL. Residents reported that the pole often had more than 12 illegal connections attached to it. “Every time GPL come and move the connections,” one man stated, “de people dem come right back and reconnect it. Dem ain’t paying for this thing so I don’t know why they fighting for the electricity like if is they right to get it.”
