-had been accused of threatening woman
A 48-year-old West Berbice man, described as a drug addict was shot dead at around 11 am yesterday after he ran at police officers with a cutlass when they tried to arrest him for threatening a woman.
Reports are that Floyd `Shaggy’ Usher, a cow-minder of Number 30 Village also pelted one of the policemen with bricks while hurling threats and expletives at them. The officer then responded by firing a shot in his direction.
The bullet reportedly caught him around his “groin area” and he was taken to the Fort Wellington Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.
In a statement last night, police said “Two police ranks, one of whom was armed with a service shotgun, responded to a report of threats made by Loraine Downer of No. 30 Village against Daniel (Usher) at the Fort Wellington Police Station today.
“The ranks saw Daniel (Usher) who is alleged to be of unsound mind and during efforts to arrest him, he attacked them with a cutlass. The ranks ran in different directions pursued by Daniel (Usher). He eventually caught up with Constable 20303 Headley who turned around and discharged a round which struck him to his leg and abdomen. He was taken to the Fort Wellington Hospital where he was pronounced DOA.”
A senior officer in Berbice told this newspaper that Usher was “closing in on the police” who was in possession of a firearm and “with quick thinking he spun around and shoot him.”
According to the senior rank, the officer who is still on the job, could have been injured had he not taken the decision to fire the shot at the irate man.
Reports are that the man who always rode around the village with a cutlass on his bicycle would threaten to chop people whenever he “smoke up.”
However, although he had never carried out the threats, Lorraine Downer, 21, who resided next door to Usher’s shack, did not want to take any more chances yesterday.
She told Stabroek News that the man was always in the habit of threatening her and “whenever I see him I does hide.” Yesterday morning he repeated threats to her at around 7 am and then at about 9 am and she became terrified and decided to report the matter to the police.
She said: “I was passing on the back veranda to come down the stairs and when he saw me he started to curse and tell me that is me he want and that if he see me on the dam he gon chop me up.”
The woman said she did not say anything to him but the second time he made the threats her brother-in-law, a police detective who also resides at the same house with her asked Usher why he wanted to chop her.
The man then responded to her brother-in-law: “Come out on the dam, ah gon chop you too.” At that stage they said nothing else to the man but escaped through a back gate to make a report to the station.
At around 10:30am a policeman in uniform arrived with the detective to arrest the man, who by that time had gone to visit a relative two houses away.
The relative told this newspaper that he was making a tent in his yard for his mother’s “one year” memorial service when Usher came over with his cutlass in hand and helped him.
He said sometime later the police arrived and the detective pointed out Usher – who was bracing on the fence with his cutlass in hand – to his colleague.
He said by then the man did not wait for the police to pick him up but started running at them with the cutlass instead.
The relative said the detective hid behind a bathroom in his yard while the police with the gun kept running down the dam with Usher in hot pursuit. He said the man stopped several yards away from the police and started to pelt him with the bricks.
According to the relative the pelting continued for a while and the officer then decided to fire the shot. Before that, he said a nephew escorted the detective out of the yard and told him to “see how y’all gon carry this man otherwise he gon get shoot…”
Other persons who were there fixing the tent told this newspaper that Usher “was not a destructive person and he never used to thief. He would ask people for money or a pint of rice.”
Further, they said, “If he want $60 and you give him a $100 he would bring back yuh change… when he get shoot a lot of people came out on the dam and cried for him.”
The man’s sister, Patricia Mc Kenzie of the same village, told Stabroek News she was very sad and felt that the police “should have shoot his foot and take away the cutlass.”
She admitted that he was a “drug addict” and had brushes with the law.
She said he was imprisoned for six months for possession of narcotics and later for two weeks for another offence.
She said too that her brother “would patrol up and down the road on his bicycle with the cutlass on it. He would say that is his weapon to defend himself but he never trouble anybody…”
She said if he threatened anyone or so she would “have to wait until he was in his full senses to tell him that what he was doing was wrong. When he smoke up you can’t talk to him.”
According to her Usher was moody and if he passed her and said nothing to her she would not say anything to him either.
