-relatives of bar fracas victims urge police
Police have said that the off duty cop who fatally shot Hewley Nicholas Barker and injured another man early Saturday morning was attacked by two men who pulled guns but family members are refuting this and are calling on the police to produce the guns they said the men had.
The off duty officer- who was reportedly moonlighting as a bouncer at the Roopa Bar located at Station Street and Railway Line, Kitty, was, according to a police release, armed and in civilian clothing when he came under fire from three men and he returned fire, fatally wounding Barker, 28, of Norton Street, and injuring Mark Caesar of Charlestown to his right side.
However, Caesar’s mother Donna Aaron said her son was not armed at the time and has asked the police to produce the guns the men were reportedly armed with as out of the three men, one was killed, the other injured, and the third was arrested by police who turned up at the scene.
Police had said the third man managed to escape.
“Initial investigations revealed that the policeman was in the area when he observed a group of men arguing and behaving disorderly. The policeman approached the group intent on warning them about their behaviour but one of the men pushed him aside and they ran away,” the release, issued late Saturday night said.
According to the police release, the man subsequently returned accompanied by Barker and Caesar and they confronted the policeman and began to assault him although he identified himself as a policeman. “During the confrontation two of the men pulled firearms and a round was discharged at the policeman who returned fire fatally wounding Hewley Barker and injuring Mark Caesar. The other man managed to escape,” the release said.
The police said both men were taken to the hospital and while Barker died while receiving treatment Caesar was admitted and is under police guard.
When Stabroek News visited Caesar yesterday he was sitting up and chatting with friends but he declined to be interviewed. His mother is questioning the purpose of the uniformed police presence as her son is no criminal.
Yesterday when Stabroek News visited the bar no one was available to speak but persons in the area said the policeman is well known as he works as a guard at the bar in the nights. Residents said by the time they came out of their homes following the sound of gunshots, the incident had already occurred so they are not clear if the police officer was indeed shot at by the men.
“But if dem man had guns how come he ent get shoot I ent believe them man had no gun,” one man said yesterday.
Stabroek News contacted Commander of ‘A’ Division, George Vyphuis to ascertain whether the policeman had used his service revolver in the shooting but he said that he had not checked since “CID is doing that investigation.”
Efforts to contact Com-missioner Henry Greene were futile.
‘Shot in the back’
Yesterday Aaron said her son was shot in the back and as such he had to be backing the lawmen when he was struck.
“When a man’s back is turn to you then that man is unarmed, my son had no gun and the police searched his vehicle and found nothing so I want to know where is the gun?” the woman asked yesterday. Meanwhile, she said her son’s wallet, his iPod and money are missing and wants to know who would have removed them.
Earlier reports are that Barker and Caesar had left the staff party of an attorney earlier in the evening and had gone to a night club and it was while there a friend turned up and informed that he was assaulted by the policeman at Roopa’s Bar. They left for the bar to “clarify with the police what the problem was really.” They had a conversation with the lawmen before a fracas broke out and gunshots rang out following which the two men were seen on the ground bleeding.
According to Aaron it was a teenage nephew of one of their friends who had visited the night club and related that he was assaulted.
That friend has since been taken into custody as according to reports he behaved disorderly after the police who turned up on the scene took a while before taking the shot men to the hospital.
Relatives have questioned this as they feel the first priority is to take the men to the hospital and while the lawmen said Barker died at the hospital reports are that the man died on the spot while Caesar remained on the ground groaning for quite sometime.
And while yesterday Barker’s mother said she has not heard “a word from police” about her son’s killing, Aaron, who has known Barker for quite sometime since he visited her home frequently, called for justice for the young man.
“Not so much for my son because he is still alive but for the young man, he was such a good and jovial child, he always had a good word to say, the police can’t just kill him like that,” the woman said.
Barker- the father of an 11-month-old – was described by a friend as a man whose “…background alone speaks to the man he was. This is not someone with a past, with a present, nothing, this was a good young man who was killed and for what?”
