The police say there is no current evidence to arrest the sergeant who shot and killed Sydel Bourne, the teenager whom he claimed robbed his wife.
“There is nothing at this point to place him under close arrest,” Police Commander of Region 4(A) Assistant Commissioner Simon McBean told Stabroek News when contacted for an update on the shooting yesterday afternoon.
He, however, added that the investigation into the fatal shooting remains ongoing.
Bourne, 16, of Agricola, East bank Demerara was fatally shot by the plainclothes rank on Wednesday afternoon at Stabroek Market, Georgetown.
While the shooter had told the police that Bourne allegedly robbed his wife, eyewitnesses contradicted his claim and said that he had shot the teen in the back after accusing him of robbing the woman.
In a statement, the Guyana Police Force had said that the rank, who was armed with his service pistol, was shopping with his wife in the area.
The woman, who is reported to have been wearing a gold chain at the time, claimed that she was attacked by Bourne and two other males.
The police alleged that Bourne was armed with a knife at the time and, along with his accomplices, he managed to relieve the woman of her chain.
The statement further added that one of Bourne’s accomplices ordered him to stab the woman and it was at that point that the woman’s husband fired at them, hitting the teen.
The other two suspects managed to escape.
The police did not state whether the knife that Bourne was allegedly armed with at the time of the attack was recovered.
Eyewitnesses told Stabroek News that Bourne was fatally wounded after he was accused of trailing the couple and then attempting to rob them.
He was reported to be a regular fixture at the market and was known to the vendors in the area.
Eyewitnesses said that Bourne was heading into the market via the second gate on the eastern side when he was pursued by the lawman and then shot in the back.
“The boy was running in there and then the man run behind him and fire one shot in he back. When the boy fall down on he face, the man [the policeman] run up to he fuh shoot he again and that is when I jump in. I tell he ‘yuh shoot that man and kill be bai.’ And then he turn he gun on me and that was when me son rush up on he,” a vendor, Judy (only name given) told this newspaper.
Several vendors in the vicinity had said that after the man shot Bourne he related that the youth was about to rob his wife.
“He say that they went into the market and this boy was following them and then he try fuh rob them but we nah see nothing like that. Even if the boy go [to] rob them, he had a gun and this is a crowded place, all he had to do was hold on pon de bai and take he to the outpost [a stone’s throw away from where the incident occurred] and let the police deal with he. If he was getting away then he should shoot he on his foot because this place crowded,” another vendor lamented.
According to vendors, after shooting the teen, the rank walked over to the Stabroek Police Outpost, where he made a report.
