An East Coast Demerara (ECD) businessman said yesterday that if he had been granted his firearm licence he would have been better able to defend his wife, who was attacked just before midnight on Friday in a chilling attempted robbery that still has the couple terrified.
Donna Fordyce of South Vryheid’s Lust, ECD who operates a business at Plaisance was held at gunpoint by two men. One of the assailants, a teenaged resident of the area, was later apprehended in his home. One of the three bullets discharged by the bandits during the incident struck the woman’s Toyota Tundra.
Police said in a press release that around 23:30 hrs Fordyce was about to enter her premises in her motor vehicle when she was confronted by two men armed with a firearm and a hatchet.
She raised an alarm and her husband and neighbours responded, the release said adding that the man with the firearm discharged rounds which damaged the vehicle as the two men escaped.
Acting on information received a man “who lives in the vicinity” was arrested and is in police custody assisting with the investigations, the release added.
When Stabroek News visited the home, Liston Fordyce was very upset over the incident while his wife was still very badly shaken.
Liston told Stabroek News that this is the third time, his home has been targeted and that a resident had been charged in relation to one of the matters and is currently serving a jail time.
The man said he remigrated from the USA to start a business in Guyana but the police have failed to grant him a firearm licence to protect himself against armed robbers. According to him he has gone through the application process several times over the years but always without success.
In April this year, he again applied and according to Liston when he returned to the police last Tuesday to enquire about his application he was instructed to return the following Tuesday.
“You need to have a firearm licence to protect yourself. Look how many people could have died before the police arrived,” the visibly frustrated man said while pointing to a letter of acknowledgement for his firearm application.
Liston stressed that persons cannot adequately defend themselves against gunmen with crowbars, ice picks or broken bottles, before making reference to the Chateau Margot businessman who was shot dead after he chopped one of several gunmen with a cutlass.
“I just want that to defend myself. I am not going out there to mek no trouble but it [the firearm] is for protection,” he said.
The businessman said that in Georgia, once a person’s background check is clean, s/he can get an application approved in the same day. He questioned why the process in Guyana is such a lengthy and frustrating one.
“We business people just want to protect we self. Why is it taking so long? By the time you trying to help yourself, you don dead,” the man said, stressing that all he wants is to have his application approved so that he could get rid of some of his fears.
‘Ah holla
fuh meh life’
Fordyce had returned home in her Tundra, an hour after Liston, who operates another business in the city.
The woman told Stabroek News that she parked her vehicle in the yard and headed back to the gate to close it when she saw two men. She said one of the men had his face hidden with a piece of cloth and was armed with a gun, while the other man had a machete. She said the men stuck her up and took her to a shed in the yard where she started screaming uncontrollably.
“God was my protector. Ah don’t know where ah find the voice but ah holla fuh meh life,” the still terrified woman said.
Liston said he responded to his wife’s screams of “help help! Liston ah getting rob”. The man said he put his head through a window and shouted that he was going to call the police and seconds later three shots were fired.
From all appearances, the bandit armed with the gun fired in the direction Liston’s voice was coming from hitting Fordyce’s windscreen in the process.
Neighbours immediately started to look out and the police arrived about five minutes later, this newspaper was told. The two bandits were unable to make any demands and had to flee empty handed.
They arrived at the Fordyces’ residence through a track which runs alongside a trench overlooking cane fields and left the same way.
The home of the suspect who was arrested can be easily accessed from this trail, this newspaper was told.
The suspect is said to be 18 or 19 years old and has always been a trouble maker. Fordyce said that on several occasions she had taken the teen and his mother to the Welfare Department when he got into trouble.
The couple yesterday blamed the bad behaviour of many youths in the area on their parents who they say are condoning it.
Liston said they are living in a cul-de-sac and this makes it very difficult to conceal their movements since “it’s one way in and one way out”.
He added that “it’s rough living in fear” and hopes that one day this would end.
Police are continuing their hunt for the second suspect.
