They are shocked and have no idea why he was killed. Police spokesman Sgt. Luciano Savoia said Ramgoolam, 24, was shot five times outside a car he was riding in on Maple between Hawk and Eagle streets around 2 am on Saturday. Police said there were reports that a dark-colored SUV left the area immediately after the killing, the Albany Times Union reported.
It was the city’s first homicide this year.
“I have to be strong”, the man’s wife, Uneesa Ally said. “I have a 20-month-old who sees me and asks, ‘Mommy why are you crying? Where’s daddy?‘“ said Ally. To the 25-year-old woman, and Ramgoolam’s extended family, his death is a shock based on the man they knew — a mechanic for the Capital District Transportation Authority, who spent more time working on his beloved 1989 Toyota Supra in the backyard than going out with friends.
“He’s such a loving person. I don’t know that he has any enemies,” Ally, a stay-at-mom who also has a nine-month-old son, told the Times Union.
According to the Times-Union, Ally said she spoke with the driver of the car, a friend of Ramgoolam’s, who said the two were making a U-turn at the dead-end of Maple Avenue when a dark-colored SUV blocked their vehicle. She said her husband was out with friends that night, but she has no idea why they were in that neighbourhood. According to the friend, who Ally only knows by a first name, her husband got out of the car, and the driver of the other vehicle got out. She said she doesn’t know how much time passed, but allegedly the driver of the vehicle began to shoot at Ramgoolam. The driver then walked over after Ramgoolam fell and shot him in the head, Ally said she was told.
The friend told Ally he stayed in the vehicle to protect himself, and the SUV sped away. Ally rushed to the scene after her husband’s friend called her.
Members of Ally and Ramgoolam’s extended family travelled over the weekend from New York City to be with her and Ramgoolam’s mother, who lives downstairs in the couple’s two-family house in the Mont Pleasant neighbourhood with Ramgoolam’s younger brothers, aged 12 and 4. They all want the same thing: answers.
“Why? I don’t get it,” said Ramgoolam’s mother, Roopmanie Girdharry. “Why did they do that to him? He’s a family man.”
Ally and Ramgoolam moved to Schenectady from the Bronx in April 2006. Ally, whose parents are Guyanese, was born in the US. Ramgoolam immigrated with his family as a young boy.
“He wanted a better life for himself,” Ally said of her husband.
The Times Union reported too that Adrian B. Parbhudial, 24, of Maple Avenue man was charged with firing a shotgun at two Schenectady officers as they attempted to raid his home on Sunday night. Schenectady police say they were executing a search warrant for their probe of the Saturday morning homicide that left Ramgoolam dead.
Parbhudial was charged with attempted first-degree murder late Sunday night for the shots that hit patrolmen Jeremy Pace and Thomas Kelly. He was arraigned yesterday morning by City Court Judge Christine Clark and sent to the Schenectady County Jail without bail.
Police say Parbhudial fired a round from a shotgun at members of the Police Department’s tactical team inside the house as they attempted to search his home at 935 Maple Ave.
A shot from the blast hit one officer’s SWAT team equipment bag and struck another officer in the chest. However, the two were not seriously injured because they were wearing bulletproof vests. The patrolmen were treated and released from Ellis Hospital’s emergency room. Pace has been with the department for 12 years, and Kelly for 10 years, the Times Union reported.
