By Mandy Thompson
A young man was killed by a stray bullet last night at the White Castle Fish Shop on Hadfield Street, Werk-en-Rust, and the police that were chasing a car in the vicinity are being blamed.
Dead is Dameon Belgrave, 23, of, Middle Street, Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara, who sustained one gunshot wound under his left arm in the region of his heart. He would have celebrated his 24th birthday today and had been at the fish shop having a ‘pre-birthday’ drink with friends.
Belgrave and a group of friends were liming by a car at the fish shop when a police patrol passed in pursuit of a car. Shots were then fired and Belgrave was hit. The police then took the injured man to the Georgetown Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
“We de liming at de fish shop and we just hear shots, so we run and we hear dem people say y’all friend drop… when we look back we see he on the ground,” one of his friends said, while adding that he was uncertain who fired the shots.
At the hospital, Belgrave’s relatives began to wail as they learnt of his death. His relatives were also heard calling the police “murderers.”
His mother said she was told that her son fell to the ground after the shots were fired but people thought he was joking. “They thought is joke he de making, so when them ain’t see he get up then them thing,” she said.
His mother also stated that Belgrave had returned from Lethem yesterday with a friend and was scheduled to go back there after his birthday.
If police are found responsible for Belgrave’s shooting, he will be the latest addition to a recent string of high-profile cases in which the use of lethal force by law men has come under scrutiny.
Recently, on September 11, three policemen are accused of fatally shooting teenager Shaquille Grant at Third Street, Agricola, where police had said the ranks came under fire, while residents said that they executed the teen. Grant was 17 and like in Belgrave’s case, he died a day before his next birthday. One policeman, Constable Terrence Wallace, was arraigned on a murder charge for Grant’s killing this week, while arrest warrants have been issued for two others, Corporal Warren Blue and Special Constable Jamal Lewis, who cannot be located.
Shane Hinds, 27, of Lot 193 Middle Road, La Penitence, Georgetown, was shot by police on Thomas Street on August 10. Hinds, the pillion rider on a bike at the time, was shot seven times and succumbed days later to blood poisoning as a result of his wounds in hospital.
The police had said that he was one of two men on a motor cycle that were challenged by them, resulting in the rider exchanging fire with them, during which Hinds was hit. The man’s family have said the circumstances of the shooting as given by police were questionable.
Police are accused of fatally shooting three men and wounding others during a protest in Linden on July 18, which fuelled unrest in the town for more than a month. The actions of the law enforcers in Linden are currently the subject of a Commission of Inquiry, which is to determine whether the fatal shootings were committed by the police and whether the police had justification for the use of lethal force at the scene. (Acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell has said the use of lethal force was unjustified.)
The inquiry is also tasked with making recommendations to assist the police in “effectively and professionally discharging their responsibilities for the maintenance of law and order” in Linden and other communities without endangering their own safety and that of innocent persons.
The police’s resort to guns in areas populated by civilians has faced continued criticism over the years.
