Teenage gunman killed during robbery
By Abena Rockcliffe and Romila Boodram
Loud cries, expressions of anger and calls for vengeance characterized the scene at the Lot 87 Hill Street, Lodge, residence of Lloyd Hazel Junior who died in a hail of bullets.
The 19-year-old was shot dead yesterday reportedly after he and an accomplice snatched a bag of cash from employees of a Main Street store. He died on the spot, on Main Street, shortly after 16:00hrs yesterday.
Relatives of the killed teen as they mourned the lost at GPHC
Kaieteur News understands that a plainclothes police rank who was escorting two employees of a Main Street store to the bank opened fire on Hazel, mortally wounding him. This is after the 19-year-old reportedly grabbed a bag of money from one of the employees with back up from his accomplice, who managed to escape.
According to a senior police source close to the investigation, Hazel’s accomplice stood next to a CG motorbike which was parked in Tiger Bay just off Main Street, Cummingsburg, while Hazel walked onto Main Street and pointed his weapon at an approaching car occupied by the employees.
The rank recalled that the car stopped and a licensed firearm holder, who was in the vehicle, came out and confronted Hazel. Hazel reportedly opened fire but his assailant used the car door to block the shots. He then rose up and returned fire, fatally wounding the 19-year-old.
Hazel was shot first on the leg then received another seven shots about his body, mostly to the chest and abdomen.
Hazel’s lifeless body was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The source said that the licensed firearm holder also shot the unidentified accomplice who managed to flee the crime scene, escaping into Tiger Bay. The escaped person remained at large up to press time.
Police ranks reportedly recovered a bag of money and one fireman at the scene. Lloyd Hazel, the dead teen’s father, told Kaieteur News that his son left home to purchase cigarettes to stock his shop which is downstairs at his residence.
He said that about 30 minutes after the 19-year-old left, he was informed that his son was shot.
The father, who managed to hold back his tears, said he immediately made his way down to the scene where he received the tragic news of his son’s demise.
The senior Hazel said that he still can’t come to grips with the sequence of events as he saw his son left with a bus. “How he end up on a bike? I just can’t believe this; it don’t make sense to me.”
But the dead teen’s mother, Karen, gave a different account of the reason her teenage son, who is the owner of a Toyota Premio, left home.
Karen said that she sent her son at a relative to collect an envelope with pictures to send aboard. She said she expected him to return soon but “like he never coming back. Why he gone and left me?”
“Is this my Mother’s Day gift?”
The distraught woman said that her son had requested that she cook split peas cook-up “without de pickle pork because he feel like eating duh. I cook it and now he ain’t gone eat it. He dead before he could eat it.”
Rolling on the road in front her residence, Karen mourned, “Everybody deh hay. I seeing all a yall. Wheh Lloyd? Wheh he deh? How many more?”
Another relative was overheard saying that the dead Hazel was in bed when he got a call and headed out of the house.
The youth said, “God deh with me cause he (Hazel) tell me leh we go, but I didn’t.”
All the relatives of the dead teen who spoke to Kaieteur News maintained that the now dead Hazel was a law abiding citizen.
Uncle Nehru always here to help.