The mother of murdered activist Courtney Crum-Ewing yesterday ex-pressed fear of a ‘cover-up’ saying that police are not treating the death threat reports made by her son against two prominent members of government when he was alive, seriously.
“I have told them who and who in government that had threatened my son’s life and to date nothing on that,” Donna Harcourt told Stabroek News. Several persons have linked Crum-Ewing’s murder to his political activism saying that the killing was possibly committed by persons who threatened his life after he refused to end his open criticism of the government.
Crum-Ewing, a 40-year-old father of three, was heard on a bullhorn last Tuesday around 8 pm shortly before he was shot five times to his body, including a close range shot to the back of his head.
At the time he was walking around the Diamond New Housing Scheme on the East Bank of Demerara urging voters not to stay at home when elections are held on May 11 but to take to the polls to oust the incumbent PPP/C government.
Police initially said a car with four men drove up and discharged shots at him and then drove off. On Friday, the police said that two men and a car were in custody.
Yesterday, Police Crime Chief Leslie James told Stabroek News that the duo remained in custody. “We are talking to the persons and they are currently responding. We are going to examine what we have including the two suspects,” James said.
However, Harcourt yesterday expressed frustration at the slothful and seemingly nonchalant attitude of the Guyana Police Force in its investigation into her son’s murder.
She said that the matter has taken a toll on her mental state.
“You know, had it been anyone else, they would have at least questioned, held them, ask them questions and all that but because it’s (officials) the police not doing anything. I feel that the police knows the story but just covering everything,” she said.
“It is because you have these known political persons, they are doing nothing.
They can at least question them, dig into the story but they want to sail the people of this country…they are holding those two persons and have ignored the two political persons who threatened Courtney,” the woman asserted.
Harcourt said that she was aghast to read that the police not only took time to call the author of a letter to the editor of Stabroek News, David Hinds, who is in the United States, to ask if he had evidence of the murder but that they also suggested her son was affiliated to a political party.
Hinds’ letter was published in the Stabroek News on March 12 and was captioned “There should be no tit for tat.”
The second paragraph of the police’s response, which was written by PRO Ivelaw Whittaker said: “The gist of the article seems to give the perception that the killing of Courtney Crum-Ewing on March 10, 2015, at Diamond, EBD, was politically motivated by persons aligned to another political party other than the one Crum-Ewing be-longed to.”
An upset Harcourt made it clear that her son did not belong to any party but was picketing against one member of the PPP. She told Stabroek News that her son was threatened by two high-ranking persons from the PPP and their names were given to the police when he went to the Brickdam Police Station to make reports.
“Them at Brickdam did nothing about it [the threats]. I want to tell Ivelaw Whittaker that I am mad and upset about what he said,” she declared.
Harcourt believes that the police can do a better investigation or at least give the perception that they are trying. “Stop trying to sail the people of Guyana; stop and go after the people who killed my son,” she urged.
