Two weeks after Bascal Johnson’s murder on Laing Avenue, Georgetown relatives are calling on police to act “in a more efficient manner”.

“We want justice,” one of Johnson’s relatives stated yesterday, “And we will not let the police forget about this case.”

Johnson, 44, of Lot 420 East Ruimveldt, Georgetown was standing in an abandoned lot located opposite Laing Avenue some time around 8.30 pm with a woman. He was reportedly shot just above the right eye by an unknown assailant.

After the shooting Johnson was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital by police and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Hours later, on January 4, he succumbed.

The woman who was with Johnson at the time he was murdered was taken into police custody but has since been released. This woman, Johnson’s relatives said yesterday, is the key to discovering the man’s murderer. “I don’t think they should have released this woman,” Johnson’s mother said, “because she is the key to finding the man who killed my son.”

Relatives said they visited Commander of Police ‘A’ Division George Vyphuis in an effort to find out the status of the investigation. “We didn’t hear anything from the police so we went to the commander and he wasn’t very helpful either,” they said.

“All he [Vyphuis] tell us is that investigations are ongoing but this isn’t saying much… this doesn’t tell us if they are making any progress,” Johnson’s mother told Stabroek News.

Relatives said they received information about the identity of Johnson’s killer and passed the information to police but don’t believe it is being taken seriously.

Several efforts made yesterday afternoon to contact both Vyphuis and the Crime Chief for a comment were futile.

Crime Chief Seelall Persaud had told Stabroek News on January 4 that police had a suspect in Johnson’s case but were yet to make an arrest.

Johnson was reportedly involved in a relationship with the woman who was with him at the time of the shooting. Earlier that day, according to a man who had said he was the dead man’s friend, Johnson had visited the Laing Avenue area and was seen talking with the woman.

Later Stabroek News had learnt from police sources that the woman gave varying accounts of what happened on Laing Avenue that night. In one version she told police she was talking to Johnson when someone came from behind and shot him. She later said that the gunman came rushing towards them shot Johnson and when she ran, pursued her for a short time before escaping.

Johnson’s relatives still believe the woman “set him up.” Reports reaching them, relatives said, have indicated that the woman was involved in a relationship with another man as well. “We visited the area after the thing happen,” one relative related, “and people over there tell us that this woman was in a relationship with another man as well as Bascal.”

That man, relatives said they learned has gone to an interior location.

The area where the shooting occurred, residents said, is very dark at night. There are not street light along that stretch of the Laing Avenue. “We had a light up but they thief it,” one woman told this newspaper, “and let me tell you in the night this area does be very dark even if it had lights on the street that empty lot woulda still been dark.”

Johnson’s murder was the first, according to statistics compiled by this newspaper, this year. It is one of four gun related murders to hit the city within a nine-day period this month.

Kulmattie Singh and Vibert Weekes were murdered during separate incidents on January 8; and in the most recent killing Nicholas Hoyte was gunned down last Tuesday. Police are yet to charge anyone with these murders.