A mid-morning argument between neighbours, over a game bird, has left one person critical and two others nursing gunshot wounds at the Georgetown Public Hospital after an irate man opened fire in Middle Street, McDoom.
Injured and critical is Abiola Eadie, 38, who was shot to the face. Nursing gunshot wounds are her son Martin Barker, 21, who was shot in his arm and her cousin Iesha George 33, who was grazed by a bullet on her left hand. All of the injured reside at Lot 50 Middle Street, McDoom, East Bank Demerara.
Eyewitnesses told Stabroek News that the incident stemmed from an argument over a game bird that Martin Barker had in his hand as he was returning home. His neighbour “Jesse” (only name given), they said, came out of his yard and accused the young man of stealing his bird.
They said Barker, who rears birds for the competitive animal “game fowl fighting”, vehemently denied that it was his neighbour’s cock and even attempted to show him features on the bird substantiating his ownership. The man flew into a rage, dashed into his home and returned with a gun and a knife.
“His wife came behind him and seh shoot deh so and so and he open fire,” one eyewitness, who requested anonymity, said.
Neighbours rushed the injured trio to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
At the hospital, Eadie’s mother Pamela Eadie and the injured George, recounted the ordeal to Stabroek News. George said, “I saw the commotion and called his mother and grandmother to let’s go rescue he because Jesse get a temper and we ain’t want nothing to happen to he [Barker]. All o’ we rushed down the road but he already run fuh he gun and a knife and was charging to Martin. He mother went in front of him and start telling Jesse let the story done because her son get plenty gamecock and he wife seh ‘Don’t listen to them shoot’ and he drop de knife and shoot.”
The visibly shaken women were at the time awaiting a CT scan for Eadie as she was listed by hospital officials to be in a critical state.
