A miner was fatally shot on Tuesday evening at the Ikewan Backdam, in the Cuyuni region, in a crime that his family suspects stemmed from a past grievance with a businessman.
Dead is Colin Jackson, 38, called “Jacko,” a father of three, of Lot 34-36 Postal Housing Scheme, Stevedore, in South Georgetown.
Police in a release last evening stated that a team of officers had ventured into the Cuyuni area in Region 7 yesterday, after receiving reports of a shooting incident. This newspaper understands that the former mines officer was shot three times about the body by another man while standing in front of a shop at the Ikewan Backdam. No one had been arrested up to press time last evening.
According to Jackson’s wife, Stacy Leslie, he left the city on Monday morning for the backdam, where he has a mining operation. She said that her husband had been working in the area for about five years.
The grieving Leslie, mother of the man’s youngest child, told Stabroek News that she received a call around midnight on Monday and was informed that her husband had been shot and that he had succumbed to his injuries. During the night, other family members and relatives conveyed similar information.
In between sobs, the woman said that her husband had “problems” with another man and she said that reports from the backdam indicated that the man’s son may have been the shooter. “He and this man called ‘Tex’ had some problems and like the man son decide to take the matter over and kill Colin,” a friend of Jackson, who was shocked by the shooting, noted yesterday.
Stabroek News understands that a team of police officers arrived at the Ikewan Backdam late yesterday afternoon, after a seven-hour drive by road. The ranks were expected at the Itaballi Landing near Bartica last night.
There have been a high number of crimes within the mining districts across the country in recent times, with the Cuyuni/Mazaruni and the Port Kaituma mining areas being the scene of violent robberies and murders.
In February, Esau Thomas, 20, of Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara was charged with the murder of Kumar Plummer, whose body was found in a mining camp at Arimu Backdam in the Cuyuni, on February 15.
On April 4, Guyanese Mohan Lall and five Venezuelan nationals were robbed of gold, cash and other valuables by an armed gang in the Wenamu River area in the Cuyuni. Five persons, all Venezuelan nationals were subsequently placed before the counts in relation to that matter.
On April 21, the body of miner Travis De Souza was found at Puruni in Region 7 with stab wounds. The man, who operated a dredge in the area, was asleep in his camp with his girlfriend when four men entered and began chopping him about his body.
Acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell, at an officers’ conference in March, said that the upsurge in criminal activities posed a challenge to the police force and he noted that a number of measures are being taken to counter the violence, including the setting up of mobile police patrols.
He said at the time that there were a number of “disorderly murders” in the interior ‘E&F’ divisions, where 30 of the 53 murders committed fell into this category. The high price of gold on the international market has resulted in an increase in mining and other activities in the goldfields and interior locations and more persons are venturing there for business.
Brumell said the terrain hampers the police force’s ability to respond to reports in a timely manner and the force has established a number of checkpoints within the division, with roving patrols that check mining and logging communities to control crime.
