One of the participants in the gang attack that claimed the life of 45-year-old Troy Hicks at Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara on Saturday last is scheduled to be charged today at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court.
Police Commander of Region 4 ‘C’, Senior Superintendent Khali Pareshram yesterday told Stabroek News the suspect was arrested with three others. The trio, he said, was released on station bail and efforts are being made to apprehend others involved in the attack.
Meanwhile, Hicks’ common-law wife, Jacklyn Powley, said that a post-mortem examination gave his cause of death as multiple stab wounds.
She stated that when she last spoke with the police on Tuesday, she was informed that four persons had been arrested. However as of yesterday she had received no updates on the status of the investigation. The officer she was in contact with informed her that he was part of an accident investigation and was not at work.
Hicks, Stabroek News learnt, was attacked just around 7 pm as he was walking through Hendricks Street. According to reports, Saturday’s attack is believed to have been in retaliation for a scuffle on Friday night between Hicks and another individual, who is now hospitalised. It is unclear what prompted that dispute.
Powley had told this newspaper that he related to her on Friday that he had been involved in a confrontation where an individual attacked him with a piece of wood. At that time he related to her that there were four other men who attempted to beat him but he managed to escape. On Saturday afternoon, he informed Powley that he was heading back into the village but she said she did not think for a second his return there meant his demise.
An eyewitness and the shop owner, Marylyn Ault, told this newspaper that as Hicks was walking through the street around 7 pm, a man who was hiding behind a garbage bin next to her shop, sprang out at him and launched a cutlass attack.
“He realised it was too much and he run to my shop for rescue but before he run into my shop, he pull out a cutlass from his waist and started to chop the boy that attack him. But the boy [attacker] crew run and come and started to attack he and he run in my shop and he started to throw things from my shop at them and they throw at he and so…” the woman recalled.
“They couldn’t do nothing because the men on the outside were pelting him and he was taking things from the shop and shying at them… he had a cutlass and was in front of we and he keep telling us `call the [expletive] police! call the [expletive] police!’ and we pleaded with him to calm down that we would call but by then the men start shying bricks and bottle and bicycle,” she recounted.
Still traumatised from the brawl, she said that after they left the shop the situation took a turn for the worse as the gang began taking items such as chairs and benches and throwing them at Hicks. In retaliation she said Hicks picked up a pot with hot oil and was about to douse his attackers when someone threw a bicycle at him and caused the oil to spill on him and burn him.
“He somehow managed to escape and jump in a bus that was passing but the bus wasn’t going nowhere and the driver jumped out after he see what was happening. He [Troy] jumped out and ran up the road and that’s where I know they beat him like he is not human,” she recalled.
A resident told this newspaper that when Hicks ran away from the gang, he attempted to escape through her yard but the gang caught him. She stated that the men ran behind him and dragged him out from her yard and mercilessly dealt him blows about his body before throwing him in the trench. She stated that while he was in the trench the men used a piece of wood to keep him down. Some passers-by eventually pulled him out and he was left on the road until the police came.
