By Joseph Allen
A West Ruimveldt family remains in shock at the killing of a peacemaker and the wounding of another after armed enforcers tried to evict a family from a nearby home. They want justice and for the police to do a comprehensive probe.
On Thursday last, Ezekiel Subhan, a 25-year-old private of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), was at home with his 23-year-old reputed wife when he heard someone knocking on the door of his West Ruimveldt, Georgetown, home. He answered the door and was confronted by a man accompanied by six other men who told him that he must vacate the dwelling.
The GDF private refused to do so and an argument between he and the men ensued. By this time a sizeable crowd had gathered and one of the men took out a handgun and fired six shots, killing Dexter Horsham and injuring Corwyne Abraham, a 38-year-old taxi driver of Charlestown, Georgetown.
The gunman and his associates fled the scene after the shooting.
Stabroek News visited the relatives of both victims. One of them, Gailand Williams, who is the cousin of Dexter Horsham as well as the aunt of Corwyne Abraham, the families are at a loss because the two were not the intended victims of the suspects.
“It should not have turned out so because if you come concerning this house, you are not supposed to come in this kind of manner. First thing, they came for a problem. If you didn’t come for a problem; you wouldn’t walk with a cutlass and gun. They come to do what they had to do, and they did not get the chance to do what came to do, so they had to take someone else out,” she opined.
On the day of the incident, the woman recalled that Abraham was sitting at the gate, when Horsham and some others came in from their construction job. “They do construction work, and they come home from work in the afternoon and they came in about 10 minutes after that’s when the boys came with this vehicle and start terrorizing the place.”
The woman recounted both victims had brought out some sort of document showing that they both own the land. She also disclosed that Subhan had moved into the property with the mother of his child about a week ago. She noted that both her nephew and cousin tried to bring some calm and reason to the issue.
“So, Dexter and my nephew Michael, Rommel, and others ran to the man’s [Subhan] rescue because of how they come. They didn’t come on no other way but to do what they had to do. So, they tried to calm them down from doing what they had to do.” And according to Williams, their efforts at peacemaking were to no avail as one of the suspects drew a cutlass and attempted to stab Subhan with it. Her two relatives responded by attempting to restrain the attacker.
Meanwhile, another suspect upon seeing this, took out a handgun hoping it would intimidate those gathered including Horsham and Abraham. When this strategy failed, he fired several shots in their direction as the men were still scuffling with the cutlass on the ground.
Williams posited that all the aggressive behaviour and violence was unnecessary, which she said she attempted to point out to the suspects even before the shooting happened. “I went to the guy in the black vehicle and tell him that it didn’t call for all this, it didn’t even call for all of this.”
The woman stressed that her family is insisting that a full investigation be held into the matter
“I need them to do their full investigation and get this thing done the right way because sometimes when you tell police one thing, police put something else. So, right now, we need full investigation and justice, the family looking for justice.”
She lamented that the family at this point cannot get over the fact that their loved one is gone.
Up to press time, no one had been arrested for the murder.
