Just over two years after 17-year-old Shaquille Grant was gunned down in Agricola and three police officers charged with his murder, the PPP is now deeming him a criminal.
On Thursday evening, the PPP issued a statement bashing main opposition party A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and accusing it of being “in bed with the criminal underworld.”
In its release, the PPP pointed to APNU leader David Granger and noted his attendance at “the funeral of a criminal killed by police.” This funeral alluded to was that of Grant.
Granger has since denied that Grant was a criminal and expressed no surprise at the PPP’s proclamation.
“I’m not aware that the person who was killed was a criminal; I don’t know that any charges were brought against him. He was a young man who was sitting in a yard at the time and he was shot dead,” Granger said.
He noted that the PPP’s general secretary, Clement Rohee, is also the Minister of Home Affairs and ought to be more privy to information on criminals.
Nonetheless, he said, “The general secretary of the PPP has been known to say things at variance with the truth.”
The PPP release further pointed out that Granger was photographed in the company of “gun-toting bandit” Kevin Fields who was killed earlier this year during a robbery.
However, Granger said yesterday that though Fields, also of Agricola, had indeed been in attendance at Grant’s funeral and had been seen in photos with him, he did not personally know the young man.
According to Granger, he had attended Grant’s funeral “out of sympathy with his mother and residents of Agricola.”
He said, “While I was consoling the mother somebody brought the bottle of water to her. I did not speak to the person who brought the bottle of water to her. I did not even drink the water. I don’t know what was in the bottle. So it was just a part of a crowd scene.” He went on, “I can’t regard that as being in bed; being in bed means something a little cozier.”
Grant, of Lot 72 ‘BB’ Eccles, East Bank Demerara, was killed in September, 2012 on the eve of his 18th birthday. According to the police, ranks on a mobile police patrol came under fire from a group of men at Caesar Street, Agricola sometime around 11 am. The ranks returned fire and fatally wounded Grant while wounding another young man, Romel Bollers, 19. Grant was said to have suffered multiple gunshot wounds in the shooting.
However, several persons have since discounted the police’s version of the events, including Bollers. According to Bollers, the police walked up to him and his friends and placed them to lie on their faces. “Them man just come up, put gun to we head and without asking anything shoot me friend behind he head,” he said.
Bollers recounted that the police accused the young men of planning a robbery but according to him, he and his friends had been “liming” on the corner all morning.
According to reports, Grant had intended to join the Guyana Defence Force on the celebration of his 18th birthday. He was reportedly a member of the Community Policing Group and had also been a product of the Citizen Security Training Programme.
