A former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officer died yesterday morning after being riddled with bullets minutes after he stepped out of a popular nightclub on Main Street in Georgetown.
The sound of gunfire caused several people exiting the nightclub to dive for cover.
A police press release issued yesterday afternoon said two men with firearms opened fire on Mingo, Joseph Barker and Earlson Murray while they were in a motor vehicle.
“Denzil Mingo was hit several times about the body and was pronounced DOA at the GPHC, while Joseph Barker was struck about the body and has been admitted to hospital,” the police release said.
The car they were in which was damaged by the gunfire has been detained by the police, the release added.
According to eyewitnesses, the gunfire started around 04:00 hrs and lasted for a couple minutes. At the end of it, the lifeless body of 21-year-old Mingo was left slumped in the driver’s seat of a white Toyota car. Barker, 32, of 54 Fifth Street Alberttown was shot several times in the arm and about the body and was rushed to the St Joseph Mercy Hospital, while Murray of Norton Street Wortmanville, escaped with a graze to his neck.
According to an eyewitness, Mingo, a former second lieutenant of Lot 39 Third Street, Alberttown, had an argument with another man earlier inside the Edge Nightclub. After Mingo and his two friends left, the eyewitness said, he heard gunfire and then saw a man jumping into a vehicle on the other side of the road. Mingo’s assailants escaped in the direction of Middle Street, the onlooker observed.
A source close to Mingo told Stabroek News that the young man was mixed up in “some bad stuff with bad people. But he still didn’t deserve to go like that… What they did was bad. They shot him up… They killed him real cruel.”
Mingo’s body was riddled with bullets, mostly in his left arm and his face. “…When the shooting start he tried to drive away but he crashed into a car in front of him and they deal with him,” the source added, expressing horror at the way he was murdered.
When Stabroek News visited his home yesterday afternoon, there was a huge gathering of family and friends in front of his yard. His mother was too distraught to speak.
Meanwhile, Barker’s relatives were sitting at his home waiting for news of his condition. His cousin, who gave his name as Forde, said that Barker was in a critical state at the hospital and was unable to speak. “We just hoping that everything is fine…,” Forde said.
Mingo was dismissed from the army after he was charged and placed before the court several times for assault. In 2010 he appeared in the Georgetown Magistrates Court before then acting chief magistrate Melissa Robertson charged with beating and wounding a man. The man had alleged that Mingo hit him on the head with a gun. Mingo was also charged with assaulting a former media worker and DJ. In addition, he was before the court over assaulting three police officers.
