The shooting incident outside a Main Street nightspot a few weeks ago which left Nigel Isaacs dead is still being actively investigated, according to Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum who said yesterday that ranks are currently trying to locate witnesses.
The alleged shooter Andre Gomez was arrested moments after the incident and his firearm seized. However, based on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the court during last week withdrew the murder charge against Gomez. No substitute charge was recommended and the court was told that the DPP had advised that there was insufficient evidence.
Since this development, observers and the relatives of Isaacs have expressed concerns at the case’s abrupt end. Gomez was freed on his second court appearance and had spent a total of 27 days in the Georgetown Prisons.
Contacted yesterday, Blanhum told Stabroek News that despite the charge being withdrawn and the accused being freed the police are still conducting investigations.
“We are trying to contact persons who were there on the night in question,” he said, adding that although the DPP has advised that the charge be dropped based on insufficient evidence, ranks are doing work to gather evidence and to contact witnesses.
During the first court appearance, prosecutor Bharat Mangru had said that there was evidence against Gomez. In his submissions he said that the spent shell recovered after the shooting matched Gomez’s gun. He added that a post-mortem examination was performed and the warhead was taken for analysis.
However, this newspaper has since been told that the warhead was “loose up” and as such no ballistics match could have been made.
There has been no further mention of spent shells and it is unclear how it was that police were unable to contact a single witness including the driver of the taxi which had hit Gomez’ vehicle. It was that incident which allegedly sparked the shooting.
Meanwhile, asked whether Gomez’s gun licence is being reviewed, he said that the firearm used in the incident is still in police custody while reiterating that the investigation is still continuing.
“It is not closed. We are still working,” he stressed.
Isaacs, a 49-year-old seaman and butcher was a husband and father to four children. During the evening of May 10 he died from a bullet wound to the head which he had sustained hours earlier when an enraged Gomez allegedly opened fire on a man who had jammed his vehicle which was parked on Main Street near a popular night spot.
The bullets missed their intended target but struck Isaacs, who was standing nearby, at least once.
Isaacs’ brother Vernon has since said that he is shocked and surprised at the outcome of the matter. He had even questioned why it was that Gomez could not have been charged with manslaughter.
Acting DPP Jo-Ann Barlow through the chambers’ public relations officer had told Stabroek News that “the evidence was insufficient to support the offence of murder and manslaughter”.
It would appear from all indications that the police instituted a murder charge and took Gomez to court without first seeking the advice of the DPP which is the usual protocol.
It was after perusing the police file for the first time that the DPP’s Chambers noticed that it lacked sufficient evidence.
“I was made to understand that they didn’t have no witness and I was made to understand that the driver of the car, he was a witness and when was time now for the ID parade he said he can’t pick out the guy,” a visibly bothered Vernon, who lives abroad told this newspaper last Saturday.
He said that the bullet which was recovered from his brother’s body should have been enough to tie Gomez to the crime.
Based on the information given to this newspaper Gomez would have fired multiple times, an indication that the gun might not have been discharged accidentally.
Gomez and Isaacs were said to be “good friends.”
