Guard shot in eye succumbs
Michael Woolford in happy times
The security guard who was hit in his left eye by a stray bullet while on the job at the Cummings Lodge Secondary School has died and his children are calling for his shooter to be arrested and charged.
Michael Woolford, 68, was hit by one of several bullets fired by a man who identified himself as a police officer, on September 9, while Woolford was on duty.
The man had cancer in his stomach and was also diabetic but the doctors could not do anything for him because of the illnesses that he suffered. The bullet had ruptured his eye and was lodged in his forehead.
He was there unconscious from September 9 until Friday when he drew his last breath. “We need justice; we want the shooter to be arrested and taken to court because he was shot by a man who says he is a police,” Marcia Sancho, one of the daughters said.
“Witnesses, including a guard who was at the scene, say they can identify the shooter if they see him again but so far no effort has been made by the police to even call for an identification parade and this is not right to us. My father was a human being and was left to lie in the hospital without even a visit from the police,” the woman added.
Woolford of lot 5 Melanie Damishana Public Road died in the High Dependency Unit just after 2:00 hours on Friday.
“We want the matter investigated because since he was shot we have not heard anything from the police except that they are investigating. A car has been impounded at the Turkeyen Police Station but the number given does fit the description given by the witness.”
The car from which the shooter emerged was identified as bearing the number plate PPP1224 and the owner has since been arrested and placed on bail. “When we go to Turkeyen where the car is impounded the car was there but the police say that the number may have been the wrong number recorded.”
Prior to the incident two men were fighting around the corner from the Cummings Lodge Secondary School where he worked as a guard.
One of the men ran after chopping the other and a man stepped out of a car claiming that he was a police and fired several shots. A stray bullet hit Woolfoird in his eye while he was sitting by the guard hut door.
The shooter assisted in putting him into a red car driven by a rural constable who rushed the injured man to the hospital.
When his family got the call he was already at the hospital. He fathered 13 children. (Mondale Smith)