By Nigel Williams
A policeman yesterday morning shot dead a Riverview, Ruimveldt fisherman, accus-ed of stealing a generator and other items from a liquor bar, but residents said the man committed no such act and chided the police for unnecessarily using deadly force.
Dead is Felix Da Silva, 27, a father of four who was fatally shot in the chest after allegations that he broke into Edward Farley’s liquor bar on the Ruimveldt Public Road sometime on Sunday night. But the dead man’s relatives said he did no such thing and they accused the police of committing murder. In a statement issued hours after the shooting, police said that while conducting investigations into a report of burglary committed on a grocery shop and beer garden at Riverview, Ruimveldt yesterday morning there was an armed confrontation between Da Silva and the police resulting in him being fatally shot.
The police said investigations revealed that about 4:30 am yesterday Farley, who operates a grocery shop and beer garden at Riverview, was aroused by noise in the building. On checking he saw two men in the shop who he recognized to be Da Silva called `Scar Chest’ and another man, both of Riverview and who are known to Farley. The police said both men however managed to escape by running into the Riverview area.
The matter was subsequently reported to the police at the Ruimveldt Police Station and Constable 18141 McRae, who was unarmed, went with Farley to the home of Da Silva who handed over some of the foodstuff allegedly stolen from the shop. Da Silva was told that he would have to go to the police 
station whereupon he picked up a cutlass that was nearby and chopped Farley to the back of his head. The police rank intervened and he, too, was chopped on his left hand by Da Silva who then ran away, the police statement said. It added that armed police ranks responded after public-spirited persons had telephoned the police at Ruimveldt and Brickdam in relation to what had occurred.
Da Silva was later found in another yard at Riverview and upon seeing the police it was alleged that he attacked one of them with the cutlass and the rank then used his firearm to fend off his attacker. The police said despite repeated calls for him to desist, Da Silva continued firing chops at the rank forcing the police to discharge rounds at him which hit him in his chest. Da Silva was taken to the Georgetown Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival while Farley was admitted a patient at the said hospital and Constable Mc Rae treated and sent away, the police statement said.
Differed
The police account however differed from what Da Silva’s wife and other residents told this newspaper during a visit there yesterday morning. Hugging their four children as she struggled to hold back tears, Da Silva’s wife, Michelle Russel said she could not believe that the father of her children was no more. “What am I going to do…who will take care of them,” the young mother questioned. The children’s ages ranged between three months to eight years. Speaking to Stabroek News, Russel said her husband had been drinking near to Farley’s bar on Sunday evening but he subsequently went home. Russel told Stabroek News she had assisted her husband getting home as he had stopped briefly at a friend’s house en route to his. “He was out there drinking, but it wasn’t he alone and he came in around 9 pm,” Russel explained.
The woman said sometime around 6 am yesterday she heard someone knocking at their door and when she checked it was the liquor bar owner and a policeman. Once inside their modest dwelling, Russel alleged that Farley broadsided her husband who was sleeping at the time. “Wheh the things you thief from my shop,” Russel quoted Farley as saying. The two men had a scuffle in the presence of the policeman, during which time Da Silva arming himself with a cutlass slashed Farley across his back. Farley retaliated by cuffing Da Silva in his face before slashing him with his cutlass to one of his ears. Russel said the police might have been hurt during the confrontation, but she insisted that her husband did not take aim at him. The woman said she watched as her husband, reeling from the chop, ran out of the house, but the policeman and Farley chased after him and shot him in one of his legs. Da Silva continued to run, but about 60 metres from his home he stopped, she said, holding his hands aloft in surrender but the policeman shot him two more times to his chest and head.
Relatives said they observed two different types of bullets. When Stabroek News visited the area yesterday residents were outraged at the shooting to death of Da Silva. They however put some of the blame on Farley who was taken to the hospital for treatment. One man commented that Da Silva had been wrongfully accused of break and entering the bar, noting that there were several other men drinking near to the bar on Sunday night.
“You can’t just blame people like that. Now look what happen, he mek the man lose he life,” the resident who asked not to be named remarked. Several residents gathered along a dam leading to Da Silva’s house discussing the incident. Russel said she had been with her husband for over eight years now and their union produced four children. She said Da Silva was not one to be involved in criminal activities and she found it strange that he was accused of breaking into Farley’s shop. “He always deh home…he don’t go around the place,” the woman said.
