AWOL GDF rank Kevin David was the gunman who brandished the firearm and robbed La Bonne Intention (LBI) resident Jasdai Persaud of her cash on Tuesday afternoon, and was subsequently badly beaten after he was hit down by a vehicle, an eyewitness said yesterday.
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) deserter was positively identified by residents in the neighbourhood as the bandit who held up Persaud and fired shots at her husband and brother-in-laws after robbing her of $750,000 she had just withdrawn.
David is one of the two bandits who were run over by a civilian who was chasing after them. The civilian, according to reports, slammed into the motorcycle, David was a passenger on, and ran over his accomplice.
A neighbour said the family had left their Cherry Field, LBI home and gone to Republic Bank, on Water Street, to withdraw money to buy materials to continue work on their house. The eyewitness said he was sitting in his hammock when Persaud and her husband returned home. He said he also noticed another car parked further down the street and that car belonged to Persaud’s husband’s brother.
He said a few minutes after Persaud entered her premises and sat in her hammock, he saw a CG motorcycle stop in front of the house. The pillion rider jumped off and barged into the yard. “I see when the man put the gun at her head and seh ‘whey the money deh?’ She didn’t scream or anything but when the man jump back on the motor bike she start hollering,” the eyewitness related.
He said the gunman, who he identified as David, fired at Persaud’s husband and the cycle sped off through the street. He alleged that David also shot at Persaud’s husband’s brother while passing the car.
He said the man, a popular East Coast Demerara businessman, reversed his car and chased after the cycle.
Another eyewitness said he heard a gunshot and a few minutes later a motorcycle came speeding through his street with a silver car tailing it. He said the car hit the motorcycle, flinging it into the air with its occupants. David, who he identified as the pillion driver, collided with the windscreen and fell onto the road. The rider of the cycle, he said, was crushed beneath the car.
A third man said he was inside his house when he heard a popping sound and when he looked outside he saw that a car had hit down two men on a motorcycle. “It was picture [movie] style,” he said.
He stated that he saw the driver exit the vehicle and walk over to one of the men who had been tossed to the side of the road. “He said, ‘is you who fire shot at me? Eh? Ah gon deal with you’ and he pick up a piece of wood and started to dig lash in he. Till other people come out from the village and join in. Everybody pick up wood and brick and beat him,” the eyewitness recalled.
“Whoever say they didn’t beat that man lie. They beat him till he couldn’t move. I thought he would have dead not the one under the car ’cause he didn’t get any beating. If that man ain’t dead is a cabbage,” he said.
He said David was beaten until police vans started to arrive on the scene. He said the men were dumped into a police van by residents.
They were then transported to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Trelon Munroe, of Tucber Park, New Amsterdam, David’s accomplice, died at the hospital. David was admitted to the hospital, where he is being treated.
The beating of the men sparked questions on how the police responded to the situation and how the city public hospital responded. There were reports that the police allowed the men to be beaten and tossed into the vehicle before they were transported to the hospital.
Similarly, there were reports that when they were taken to the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Unit they were made to wait for medical attention.
When Stabroek News contacted Crime Chief Leslie James for a comment on issue, he said he would have to confirm whether the men were indeed beaten.
The hospital quickly rejected any allegations that its staff was lax in responding to the men. Public Relations Officer Mitzy Campbell told Stabroek News that reports circulating that Accident and Emergency Unit staffers had dragged their foot in providing medical attention were false.
She said serious injuries, such as the ones sustained by David and Munroe, were considered a priority and medical workers would attend to them immediately. She said staff would not leave them unattended unless “their conditions were stabilized. Critical cases are attended to immediately regardless if they are bandits or whatever.”
At the hospital yesterday, David’s family was reluctant to speak, stating only that his condition was stable.
“We don’t want to talk about it,” David’s aunt said yesterday at his home in Agricola.
