Shopkeeper gunned down in Agricola
- escaped execution attempt last Sunday
A gunman wearing a hooded sweat-shirt riddled 28-year-old shopkeeper Randy Persaud with bullets in Second Street, Agricola, at around 20.00 hrs last evening before calmly walking away from the scene.
The slain man’s home
Persaud, called ‘Billo’, was shot multiple times at close range as he sat on a log with two relatives outside his Lot 83 Agricola home. He was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation where he succumbed, with his mother and other relatives at his side.
Eyewitnesses identified the alleged killer as an Agricola resident, who reportedly had a dispute with a prison officer that is a friend of Persaud’s.
Relatives alleged that the shopkeeper and his friend survived a similar execution attempt last Sunday while travelling in a car in Brutus Street, Agricola. The suspect is said to be a sibling of a notorious gunman who was at the centre of the unprecedented crime wave that began with the infamous 2002 Camp Street jailbreak.
A cousin of the slain man told Kaieteur News that he was sitting with Persaud outside the victim’s shop, when a man in a hooded garment walked up to them. He said that the hooded individual said: “Boy, you,” before kicking Persaud into a ditch. The man, who had a handgun, then riddled Persaud as he lay helpless in the ditch. According to the eyewitness, the gunman then calmly walked further north, down Second Street.
Amanda Persaud, an aunt of the slain man, said that she was watching television when she heard several gunshots.
“I run into my verandah and I see this man shooting more bullets into my nephew.” She said that her nephew was still alive when relatives put him in a vehicle. “His last words were ‘mommy’, but then he went into unconsciousness,” the distraught aunt recalled.
His mother, Debbie Persaud, also recalled hearing gunshots and running outside to see her son lying on the ground. “He was lying on the ground and saying ‘ow mammy…ow mammy…”
Relatives insisted that Persaud had no dispute with anyone and revealed that he only returned from Suriname about a week ago.
But one relative suggested that the killing stemmed from last Sunday’s incident in which the suspect and others shot at a car in which Persaud and his prison officer friend were travelling. Following that incident, police reportedly went into Agricola and arrested several other Agricola youths. The relative believes that the alleged killer may have been incensed by the arrest.
Twenty-eight people have now been slain for the year. There have been seven execution killings