– success may have helped quell perceptions of racially motivated attacks

It may be too soon to start breaking out the champagne, but a welcome trend seems to be emerging within the Guyana Police Force.
Despite being under pressure to stem a recent rash of violent robberies and particularly savage murders, detectives have managed to solve at least eight homicides in the past six months.
In doing so, they have not only put some particularly sadistic individuals behind bars, but their success seems to be quelling a disturbing perception that some of the crimes were racially motivated.
Police have not had much success in solving execution-style killings, but even that seems to be changing.
On January 12, businesswoman Patricia Senasie had just exited  her a car outside her 129 Atlantic Gardens, East Coast Demerara home, when a gunman shot her several times.
Senasie was the wife of Deokaran Sanasie, owner of Ram’s Auto Sales, who was himself shot in a botched execution attempt the previous year.

Colin Alleyne

Courtney Crum-Ewing

Three months later, police arrested Richard Stanton, 39, also known as ‘Ritchie’, of Princes Street, Lodge, for Sanasie’s murder. He was subsequently charged.
On March 10, activist Courtney Crum-Ewing, well known for his one-man protests, was gunned down on March 10 last at Third Avenue, Diamond Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara (EBD).
The killing sparked protests and cries of political assassination.
It would take police five months to make a breakthrough. In early August, police arrested and charged Regan Rodrigues, also called ‘Grey Boy,’ for Crum-Ewing’s murder.
Police have also come through in solving some homicides that appeared to be violent robberies, but turned out to have other motives.
On May 31, taxi driver Dennis Narine was shot dead at his La Parfait Harmonie, West Bank Demerara residence.
Police were initially told that Narine, his wife and three children were asleep when the taxi driver was aroused by a noise at a window.

Deoram Sookchand

Pamela Kendall

Regan Rodrigues, also called ‘Grey Boy

Narine is said to have left his bed to investigate the noise when he was shot in the chest by someone who fired through the window.
But in June, police arrested Ravindra Ramdat, 20, of Grove, East Bank Demerara, and subsequently charged him with Narine’s murder.
The solving of one case in particular may have helped to ease some of the post-elections tension and suggestions of racially motivated robberies and killings.
It was on August 20, last, during a power outage Number 45 Village Public Road that someone shot 56-year-old cash crop vendor Pamela Kendall in the face. She managed to run to her brother’s house, a few yards away, but died shortly after at the Skeldon Hospital.
The story police heard was that Kendall and her reputed husband, Deoram Sookchand, had just entered their home when an intruder shot Kendall. That intruder reportedly then fled.  Residents vented their outrage at the murder and other crimes in the area by blocking a main road and burning tyres.
But about a week later, police took Deoram Sookchand, the reputed husband, into custody. He was subsequently accused of killing his spouse and charged with murder.
In late August, three days after he was reported missing, police found the body of 37-year-old seaman Davonan Sookram at the side of the Ruby Access Road. He had been shot twice in the head. His killing was said to have stemmed from a soured drug deal.
Suspected execution-style killings are rarely solved here, but on August 8, Ruel Brandon, a former policeman, appeared in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts and was charged with Sookram’s murder.
Like Sookram, Jamaican Michael Dillon is believed to also have been murdered over a soured deal. His decomposing body, with suspected bullet wounds, was found last April in an area near Kimbia, Berbice.
Police have since charged Quacy Walker, 24, a miner from Sir David Street, Rose Hall Town; and Quacy Walker, 25, a farmer from Kimbia, in connection with Dillon’s murder. Police are to exhume Dillon’s body to conduct a postmortem.
But the most savage murders were committed on two elderly women.
On August 1, surveillance cameras recorded a young man clubbing and stomping 77-year-old Carmen Ganesh to death in her Montrose, East Coast Demerara home.
Some three weeks later, police arrested Colin Alleyne and a relative of Mrs. Ganesh in connection with her murder. Alleyne was subsequently charged while the relative was released on station bail as investigations continue.
Late last July, when drug addict Stanley Barrow, called ‘Cuffy’, saw 68-year-old Megan Jones wandering alone on a West Coast Demerara roadway, he beat her unconscious, raped her and then cut out her tongue.
The 40-year-old Barrow remained at large until last Friday, and he is said to have readily given police all the gruesome details of his attack on Mrs. Jones, who is said to have been mentally ill, and in the habit of wandering.
He is due to appear in court this week.