Police yesterday afternoon cleared blockages off the Nos. 3 and 5 villages’ roads on the West Coast Berbice (WCB) after residents protested again over the murders last month of the Henry cousins, Isaiah and Joel, and constricted travel in the area.
It is unclear exactly why the residents were protesting as the police have been investigating the killings and a team has been here from the CARICOM Regional Security System (RSS) and IMPACS assisting with the probe.
The fresh protest first started at the bridge along the main access road in Number Five Village, WCB. Those gathered first used tyres to start a fire across the road blocking traffic on both ends.
One woman said she was caught in the traffic as a few men began blocking the road.
“They start the fire but they realised that a resident of Number Five was blocked so they opened the end for him to pass and everybody behind him just drive and force to pass”, she explained.
The woman also said that she witnessed one man attempting to kick a man off of his motorcycle as he was forcing his way past too.
Stabroek News was told that police quickly arrived on scene and extinguished the fire and began removing the blockage.
The Guyana Police Force in a statement yesterday said that ranks would remain on the ground until the roads were cleared and that persons were warned that they would be arrested since their actions were “illegal and unlawful”.
The statement said that “About 10:30hrs on 2020-10-04 persons claiming to be the relatives of the late Isaiah and Joel Henry and some residents of # 5 Village, West Coast Berbice began to block the # 5 Village bridge with old tires and debris and lit the same”.
According to the force, a police patrol vehicle arrived shortly after but had to request assistance and subsequently addition-al ranks were deployed to the scene at Number Five Village and commenced clearing the bridge.
“About 13:15hrs hours they were successful in clearing the #5 bridge but had to immediately respond to reports of #3 Village Public Road being blocked. The ranks as at 16:15hrs were still working to completely clear the roadway in #3 Village”, the statement said.
As of 6.30 pm yesterday, Commander of Region Five, Edmond Cooper told Stabroek News that the roads had been cleared. One resident noted that persons were still out in various areas between the two villages.
The police force said that “protesters voiced concerns over the seeming delay in ongoing investigations but were repeatedly told that their protest was illegal and unlawful and that arrests will be made”.
The police added, “The relatives were reminded that ranks from the Major Crimes Unit are continuing the investigation with the assistance of a Regional investigative team drawn from RSS and CARICOM IMPACS”.
Berbice Bridge
Meanwhile, one person who was travelling from Region Six to Georgetown yesterday relayed his experience to this news-paper. He said, he was already in a car at the Berbice Bridge when the driver informed him and other passengers that he would not be heading to Georgetown anymore due to reports of the protest.
He said they were forced to board another car, “We were able to come till up to Cotton Tree (WCB) area and police stopped us and said we can’t go further than that”.
However, he explained, that there was a female present who told them that she would be willing to give them a drop further up for $200 each. “She took us up to Number Three where they had some truck tyres and scrap metal on the roadway”.
He said they then had to exit the woman’s vehicle and walked from Number Three all the way up to Number Five Village.
He said that the persons gathered at Number Five Village were not hostile to those passing, as police were in the process of removing the debris from the road.
“But the protesters started to act up and they put up a big mesh and coconut bar and other scrap metals but the fire was put out so we were able to pass there still”, he stated.
The man noted that a car was waiting at that end of Number Five Village for one of the passengers he had met when he left Re-gion Six and as such they all boarded that car and proceeded to Georgetown.
Coconut farm
On September 6, the bodies of Joel Henry, 19, and Isaiah Henry, 16, both of Number Three Village were found on a coconut farm in the backlands of Cotton Tree Village.
However, investigators probing the murders of the teenaged cousins had determined that they were not killed at the site where the bodies were found. The suspects who had been kept in custody for ques-tioning about the crime have all been released so far.
“Preliminary findings showed that the bodies of the Henry boys were discovered at a secondary crime scene,” the Guyana Police Force’s spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Royston Andries Junor had said in a previous statement.
The discovery, Andries-Junor had said, means that the heinous murders were not committed where the bodies were found. “Person(s) moved the bodies after the murder and placed them at the locations where they were subsequently discovered,” he noted.
“At this time, the investigators are actively in search of the primary crime scene which would greatly assist in the probe as the primary crime scene will have an abundance of evidence linking the perpetrators to the crime,” he added.
According to Andries-Junor, the determination was made after investigators were able to overcome some challenges and get to the crime scene.
On the evening of the day the bodies were discovered, protests originating at No. 5 Village erupted. These convulsed the WCB for days after and led to attacks on commuters and the murder of Haresh Singh in what was seen as reprisal for the killing of the Henry cousins.
DNA samples from the crime scene have also been sent to St Lucia for testing and a team from an Argentinean forensic institute may also soon arrive to assist in the investigation.
