Berbice vents outrage over violent crime
Waving placards and burning tyres, residents of Number 45 Village, Corentyne, Berbice, yesterday voiced their outrage over the recent spate of violent robberies in their community, and which escalated Thursday with the killing of cash crop farmer Pamela Kendall.
During the approximately hour-long demonstration, residents dumped tyres, utility poles and tree trunks onto the main road. They also set some of the debris alight.
Some semblance of calm only returned to the community after police ranks arrived and spoke to the residents, some of whom threatened to return.
“No more cheap talk, we are not fools,” one placard read. “We need protection now,” read another.
The protesters gathered at around 15:30 hrs, with many having some story to tell about the crime that has overwhelmed the community.
“We don’t need no police, leh we live in war”, one protester shouted. Another resident said that the situation has become overbearing and very little action is being taken to curb the situation. According to one man, “bandits have been causing havoc in their community, with innocent people losing their lives at the hands of these fearless perpetrators”. He questioned why the perpetrators are targeting their community regularly.
Among the protesters were the Sookchand family, whose relative (Pamela Kendall) was shot dead by an intruder.
“This is sad, this is overbearing,” one family member said, while stressing that they are hardworking people who are mainly rice farmers, and livestock and cash crop farmers.
Another resident cried out “me is a member in this community here and is every night, every night something happening. This nah right at all, we fed up, “every night abee deh in fear hay.”
The residents claim that the bandits used the backlands as an escape route in all of the recent robberies. They are questioning whether the authorities would take any action to bring them relief.
Pamela Kendall’s husband yesterday said that his wife’s killer came close to spotting him hiding in a dark bathroom, as his wife lay outside with a bullet to the face.
The husband, NDC employee Deoram Sookchand, recounted his close escape even as police continued to search for the gunman who killed his wife.
While Mr. Sookchand says that he is certain that the gunman had planned to rob them and shot his wife after she screamed, police yesterday said that they are looking at a number of motives, other than robbery.
Sookchand said he was having a bath downstairs and his wife was about to close the back door when he heard a single gunshot, and his wife’s screams.
According to Sookchand, he began to scream to alert the neighbours while one of the bandits, armed with a gun, ran upstairs. Within minutes the intruder returned downstairs and he, along with his accomplice, fled into the backlands.
Sookchand said that he ran outside to assist his wife, but she had managed to run to her brother’s residence, approximately 100 yards away.
She was immediately rushed to the Skeldon Public Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. She bore a gunshot wound to the left side of her face.
Meanwhile, the dead woman’s husband stated that nothing was stolen from the home.
Kendall’s murder pushed the murder rate to 100. It is just one of several senseless and brutal robberies to have occurred this year.
On April 4, Linden businesswoman, Shevon Gordon was shot dead on April 4 by robbers a stone’s throw from her home. Her 23-year-old son, Devon, was shot to the right leg after he ran to her rescue.
In June, rice farmer Hardat Kissoon was robbed and shot dead after returning from a city bank.
A few days later, Regent Multiplex Mall owner Ganesh ‘Boyo’ Ramlall was riddled with bullets and stripped of jewellery in his home at La Jalousie, West Coast Demerara.
On August 1, Danrasie ‘Carmen’ Ganesh, 77, was battered to death in her home at Montrose, East Coast Demerara. She was the third elderly woman, who lived alone, to be murdered this year.
The others are 67-year-old Ramdai Mohabir, called ‘Aunty Elsie’, who was raped and strangled on February 9 in her Lot 665 Topo, Albion, Corentyne, Berbice, and Suroogpattie Ramlakan, 73, called Auntie Carmen, of Richmond Village, Essequibo.
She was found lying on the floor of her two-bedroom home. Her night dress was pulled above her knees and her neck bore lacerations.
