An argument between neighbours over a cockfighting bird ended in gunfire yesterday morning, leaving one person critical and two others wounded.
Injured and in critical condition at the Georgetown Public Hospital 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 a cousin, Iesha George, 33, who was grazed by a bullet on her left hand.
All of the injured reside at Lot 50 Middle Street, Mc Doom, East Bank Demerara, which was stained in blood after the mid-morning shooting.
Eyewitnesses told Stabroek News that the incident stemmed from an argument over a game bird that Martin Barker was holding 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 cockfighting matches, vehemently denied that the bird was his neighbour’s 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 wo-men were then awaiting a CT scan for Eadie as she was listed by hospital officials to be in a critical state.
The CT scan revealed that she had multiple head injuries and up to press time last evening she remained a patient in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital, while her son was resting well, nursing a bullet wound to his shoulder in the male surgical ward.
Residents of Middle Street, McDoom last evening expressed anger that the alleged shooter’s wife had packed and moved out of the area with her children after the incident.
They claimed that, accompanied by the police, the woman was allowed to move and they feared that the injured would not be served by the law. However police sources stated that they have launched a manhunt for the shooter.
