A 21-year-old man, who was attacked by a gang of four and stabbed in the left side of his chest, died at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) on Saturday night.
Jason Clarke, 21, of Louisa Row, Werk-en-Rust, Georgetown was rushed to the medical institution by friends shortly after 8 pm that night. He succumbed to his wound shortly after. Police have since arrested one of Clarke’s attackers.
Clarke, residents said, was walking along Norton Street when four young men approached him.
An argument erupted between the men and led to a physical confrontation.
During the struggle, residents reported, Clarke wounded one of his attackers on the arm before sustaining a fatal wound.
“I don’t really know exactly is wah happen,” a man, who declined to identify himself, told this newspaper. “All I know is that he and these boys been arguing and they end up in a fight and the only thing I really see was he [Clarke] on de road bleeding.”
However, a close friend of the deceased told this newspaper that Clarke and his attackers had “a problem”. Shortly before his death, the friend said, Clarke had gone to a bakery in the area to buy bread and on his way home one of the four men who later attacked him threw hot soup at him.
“He was telling us how he walked pass these guys and they throw hot soup on him,” Clarke’s friend related yesterday afternoon. “After that he left Louisa Row to go out on the road again and the next thing we hear is that he get stab up on Norton Street.”
After receiving news of Clarke’s wounding, his friend said, a group of them rushed to Norton Street and found the man sprawled on the road bleeding.
One of the men who’d attacked Clarke, his friend related, was also at the GPH on Saturday night seeking medical attention.
“We didn’t realize that one of the guys [attackers] was in the hospital until we hear Clarke asking “Why y’all had to do this to meh” and this guy notice that we start looking at him he get up right away and rush out de hospital.”
Clarke, according to his friend, was the caretaker of a building on Louisa Row and also lived there. Several persons who knew him well said he was an orphan and had no relatives.
Meanwhile, another man told this newspaper that Clarke had “a longstanding misunderstanding” with one of his attackers.
According to the man, the group had made several attempts to start a fight with Clarke and finally succeeded when they accused him of attempting to snatch a gold chain.
“Jason wasn’t a boy like that,” the man said. “He woulda never try to snatch nobody chain. Is set them boys set he up…I don’t know what exactly de problem was that he had with one of de guys.”
Clarke’s friends also indicated that the young man had no one to cover his funeral expenses.
They also said that his attackers lived in the vicinity of Norton Street and expressed the hope that police would soon be able to arrest the remaining three.
“These boys that lime out there (Norton and Hardina streets) are dangerous,” one resident said. “A lot of people going to frighten to point them out cause if they get off when they go to court then they going to come back for we.”