The mother of twenty-year-old Gavin Paul, who was fatally shot after he snatched a chain from a woman on Saturday, says the shooter should be charged.
Stabroek News understands that Paul was told to “freeze” by the firearm holder but he chose to continue to run after he saw a crowd advancing towards him and he paid with his life.
The shooter was in the vicinity of Alexander Street and North Road when Paul snatched the chain off the neck of Alana Butcher. The young woman was walking along North Road when Paul accosted her from behind and said, “You wearing all this gold and walking alone?” When she turned around to face Paul he immediately grabbed her gold chain but Butcher said she refused to give up the chain without a fight and she tussled with Paul. The two fought and the young woman ended up ripping Paul’s jersey off and he slipped away and ran with the chain.
According to reports reaching this newspaper as the man ran off the shooter told him to “freeze” and he stopped for a while and looked at the man with the gun but within a few seconds he decided to continue running because a large crowd was closing in.
It is not clear if the man was shot immediately after he ran off or if the shooter followed him as he scaled fences along Robb Street in his bid to escape. In the end he collapsed on Robb Street in front of the New Court Yard and died writhing in pain in the rain from a gunshot to his back. Even though there was a large crowd on the scene no one took the young man to the hospital and some continued to grill him about the chain as he cried out in agony. His body was left lying in the rain for hours before it was finally removed.
Yesterday the man’s mother, Winola Baptiste, said the man who shot her son should be charged as he had no right to shoot him in the back. She said they have been given information on the identity of the man and plan to visit him.
“He ent had to shoot he in de back he coulda shoot he in the foot or something…” a female relative of the man lamented yesterday at his Hill Street, Albouystown home.
According to relatives Paul from all indications was given a serious beating before he was shot as there were marks on his body. They said that they observed what appeared to be cutlass brands on the man’s body. A man, who said he was cleaning his yard when Paul attempted to hide on his property, had chased the snatcher down the road armed with a cutlass.
“Dem beat he why dem couldn’t just hand he over to the police?” Paul’s mother questioned. She along with other relatives asked what became of his trousers as he was just dressed in his briefs when he breathed his last. “Is like dem strip he, beat he and then shoot he but he still manage to run before he fall down,” a relative said.
They said while what Paul did was wrong he should have been handed over to the police and the justice system instead of being shot in the way he was.
Baptiste said Paul had dropped her to church on a bicycle and before she walked in he told her he was going home because it appeared as if it was going to rain.
“I look at he and I don’t know why but he face just look kind a strange like and I ask he if is home he going and he say yes. But when my cousin come and call me out a church I just know is something happen to me son,” the woman said.
Asked if she was aware that her son was involved in robbing people the woman did not deny.
“To be honest he pick up with this boy who robbing people fuh years and who grandmother spend nuff money on to keep he out a jail. Is since he pick up with this boy he start doing dem things,” the woman said. She said she spoke to her son several times and even sent him to St Lucia to get him away from the environment but he returned recently and she was making arrangements for him to return.
At one time the young man worked with relatives clearing containers and from time to time he would go on ships but when he struck up a friendship with the young man he stopped working.
“I use to tell him stop liming with de boy and is not the first time somebody dead liming with this man. Another boy dead almost just like how me son dead and this man still living,” the woman lamented.
It was this friend who went to Paul’s home and called him and he quickly put his jersey on and left.
That was the last time his relatives saw him alive.
A post-mortem examination is expected to be performed today while his relatives are hoping that the man who pulled the trigger would be brought to justice.
