An uncle of the notorious Rondell `Fineman’ Rawlins who was gunned down during a standoff with lawmen in the Kuru Kururu area last week said yesterday that it was the police and their constant harassment that turned him into a criminal as he previously had a bright future ahead of him.
Linden Archibald, during an interview with the media yesterday, said Rawlins had been a thriving upholsterer in Agricola often attended church but it was the police who changed him.
At the time of the interview, Archibald was at the Georgetown Hospital Mortuary along with other relatives of Rawlins, Jermaine `Skinny’ Charles and Seon Grant, who were killed last Thursday. The post-mortem examinations were conducted yesterday.
Visibly upset, the man said it was the police who turned his nephew into a criminal. According to him, Rawlins at one time had a “good and kind heart”.
“This boy use to do upholstery work in Agricola. But it is a frame charge they put him on and turn him into a criminal,” he said adding that several years ago he had taken it upon himself to go to Commissioner of Police (ag) Henry Greene who was then a Commander to complain about the police harassment of Rawlins, but to no avail.
Archibald expressed his disgust that Rawlins name was linked to every crime that occurred in the country.
“Every time somebody dead, they find a bullet that ‘Fineman’ had that kill that person,” he added.
Heavy police
presence
Meanwhile Archibald said there was heavy police presence when he arrived at the morgue around 6.25 am. He said that he was being taken to see his nephew’s remains when he was told that he had to wait until the PM was completed.
Archibald said when he enquired the reason for the police presence, he was told it was for security reasons.
“The police protecting him because they apparently feel that this dead man will get up and run away.”
Shortly after 10 am, the wrapped bodies of Charles and Grant, were placed in a waiting hearse, which later drove off closely followed by heavily armed policemen.
Relatives of Charles were openly voicing their disapproval at not being allowed to see his body. “He don dead man. Why police got to deh behind he like that?”, a relative asked.
About 15 minutes later, the body of Rawlins was brought out and his relatives requested that his face be shown; they questioned why his face was so heavily wrapped.
A woman who was standing nearby was openly wailing, “Ow ma God they kill ma lil brother”. Relatives were told that if they wanted to see the bodies they had to go to the Lyken’s Funeral Home.
A police jeep with two heavily armed policemen sitting at the back, trailed the hearse transporting Rawlins’ remains as it left the compound.
Early Thursday morning, acting on a tip-off, teams from the Joint Services Operation Group and the Guyana Defence Force Special Force along with members of the Special Forces proceeded to an area in Timehri about 500 metres east of the GDF ammunition dump. There, the lawmen said, they came under fire from shooters in an identifiable house. They returned fire and saw three men running from the house. When they descended on the scene they found the body of a man who was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The man was identified as Grant.
The two men who had fled ended up in Kuru Kururu at a place villagers call Kakabura at a small unfinished concrete structure. There was an exchange of gunfire around 12.45 pm in which two men, later identified as Rawlins and Charles were killed.
Sources have since told Stabroek News that Rawlins and Charles might have suspected that Grant had informed the joint services about their movements and killed him hours before they were cut down in a hail of bullets.