– cops
By Oscar P. Clarke
Police yesterday shot and killed a Princes Street, Wortmanville resident in the bedroom of his home in what relatives and friends say is another extra-judicial killing.
Wesley Hendricks called ‘Little Mate’, a 47-year-old remigrant, whom the police said was a deportee, was shot by ranks of the Anti-Crime Unit popularly known as the ‘Black Clothes’ at his Lot 42, Princes Street home at around 12:30 pm yesterday.
Police said in a press release yesterday that they had received information that one of the Mash Day prison escapees and two others were in the home and proceeded to the address. Once there, they entered the premises and upon forcing open a bedroom door, heard a gunshot ring out from the room. This forced a member of the party to discharge his weapon, mortally wounding Hendricks, who, the release said, had a loaded AK 47 rifle in his hand.
According to the release, a subsequent search of the wardrobe in the house, revealed a .357 magnum Smith and Wesson revolver with six live rounds in the cylinder. A .380 pistol with six rounds, 25 .45 rounds and seven .357 rounds were also found wrapped in plastic bags in the house. A female companion, who was with the deceased in the house prior to his death, the police said, fled while they engaged Hendricks.
The release said that Hendricks was before the court charged with possession of arms and ammunition said to have been found in the house on Good Friday last.
This charge of possession was disputed yesterday when this newspaper spoke to relatives, including Hendricks’ reputed wife Sharon Lindor, who was at the home at the time of the shooting.
According to Lindor, she and Hendricks, who ran a trucking service among other business ventures, along with his stepfather Harold Culpepper were sitting in the living room when a telephone call came from someone who identified himself as ‘Merai’ asking for ‘Mate’. She said she handed the telephone to Hendricks and as he completed his conversation, the police, who she believed might have been calling from a mobile telephone were in the house and dragging them in separate directions.
She said she was taken to a rear bedroom with a gun pointed to her head and kept there. She added that her husband was pushed into a front bedroom from where she heard several shots ring out. She was not allowed to leave the room until after she had heard her reputed husband being dragged from the room down the front stairway and placed in a waiting police vehicle, which had reversed into the yard.
Hendricks’ stepfather, 92- year-old, Harold Culpepper, who is blind and who was seated in a chair in the living room of the home at the time of the shooting recalled hearing several shots ring out before someone was dragged near to where he sat.
Lindor said that she emerged from the room as the police were about to leave with the body of her reputed husband and they told her that they would return to arrest her.
As word of the incident swept through the neighbourhood a vocal crowd assembled outside the home, as relatives and friends arrived and wept openly. Many were heard saying that the police had a vendetta against the deceased.
The police took Hendricks to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, back at the home his reputed wife and several other females were overcome by grief. Lindor fainted several times as she screamed uncontrollably in anguish.
Attorney-at-Law Mortimer Coddette, who represents the family, arrived a little after the shooting and was one of several persons whom police ordered from the premises when they returned.
According to Coddette, they later recognised him and enquired as to his presence there and then invited him to accompany them into the house, an offer that he declined.
Hendricks, according to relatives, had returned home of his own accord at the time of the death of his mother about two years ago and had since been engaged in several business ventures including trucking, farming, and a mining claim in the interior.
According to them, he has had several accusations levelled against him and his properties searched by authorities. During a search of his home on Easter Monday, by a party of police lead by slain superintendent Leon Fraser, a .38 pistol was said to have been found and he was charged and placed before the courts. He had been placed on bail and his case was scheduled to continue on May 13.
