“The sight of my son walking through the door in a hospital gown, skin bloody with obvious injuries is one that I would never forget. Even talking about it right now is almost making me shake.”
The words of a mother of two whose 17-year-old son was brutally attacked and robbed in the village of Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo. One man has since been charged in relation to the incident and is out on $300,000 bail. The mother said there are at least three more people involved in the incident but it seems as if the police have ended their investigation.
“But I am not going to give up, I call almost every day because I need justice for my son. He is now left traumatised by a most horrific attack and one he now has to live with forever,” she told me recently.
For her, the most horrific part of the incident was the fact that her mixed-race son, from all indications, was attacked because of his race. She herself is mixed race as her mother is Indian and her father African and while she said she has had some issues while growing up this is by far the worst she has experienced.
“If you hear some of the things these men tell him. They asked him why he was in the village; if he know that people like him was not welcome. If you hear some of the words they used. If I could do anything to make him unhear them I would,” she said.
She recalled that the second-year Government Technical Institute (GTI) student initially left home that fateful evening to go to a part-time job with his uncle. However, from all indications that did not materialise and the teenager instead decided to attend a function with two other friends on the west side. They live about three villages away from Tuschen. Her son left their home at around 7 pm and the next time she saw him was in that hospital gown at around 5 am the next day.
“He left and the last time I spoke to him he said he was in a bus, he did not say in a bus going where but I assumed he was going to his uncle. I don’t like him on the road late and we have had those arguments,” the mother related.
“I went to bed and when I woke up he wasn’t there and I started calling but the phone was off. I even called my sister who lives at the front to see if maybe he came and I didn’t hear him and he went by her, but he was not there.”
The woman said she was worried and she kept trying her son’s phone and as the morning approached she was at her wits’ end.
“The next thing I know he is walking through my door in a hospital gown and he had blood all over here. For a moment I was shocked, I could not even say anything for a while. When I could speak I kept asking him what happened and he was not answering and then I noticed he had stitches by his lip so he really couldn’t speak properly. He started to write telling me that he was attacked and robbed,” she said.
“I just couldn’t believe it. While I was happy that he was alive, I was like shaking and he was shaking too. That is how afraid he was and even though he could have speak a little, for hours he did not say anything. It was the hardest thing as a mother to witness because I could see the fear was still in him.”
The woman said her son later told her that he and his friends, one African and the other Amerindian, had left the function and were awaiting a car when they were first attacked.
“He said that they were standing and these guys on bicycle came up to them and asked them what they were doing there and if they knew that people like them should not be in the area. They asked them if they could defend themselves and they answered yes…,” she said.
Eventually the boys managed to run away and they thought that they had escaped.
“But it started to rain and they were sheltering under a bus shed when they saw this car driving slowly past them. The car then stopped and reversed and two guys came out with cutlasses and then it drive a little way and two more guys with cutlasses came and so it was four of them,” she related.
“My son said they started to run and they all ran in different directions but he was caught by three of them and they started to beat him and racially taunt him. They broadsided him with the cutlasses and asked if he didn’t know people like him was not welcomed there.
“He said one of them then indicated that it was a young boy and they should leave him alone, but the others were saying they should kill him and make him an example. They had him kneeling down begging for his life and is when one of them put the cutlass to his throat that he told them he had money and if they didn’t want it.
“His pants was a little tight and it was a little hard for them to get into pocket and you know what they did? They took the cutlass and cut off his pants, you could see cutlass scrape on his skin when they cut the pants off. They cut off his jersey too and cut the strap of the bag he had on his shoulders. He had his friends’ phones in the bag along with his because he was the only one who had a bag. They cut his clothes off and left him standing in only his boxers.”
Almost in tears, she said her son told her he screamed for help but no one went to his aid and it was only after the assailants left that one of his friends came out of hiding and they were assisted by someone in a minibus who took them to the Leonora Police Station. He was taken to the hospital where he received treatment and because of his state of undress the hospital staff allowed him to leave with the gown.
“My son for days could not eat anything solid, just liquid, because of the injury to his mouth. He was in so much pain but I think the pain was more on the inside where you could not see. I would always tell him that I don’t want him on the road in the nights but I never told him because of his mixed race that he has to be careful on the road. I never had that talk with him,” she said, sounding almost incredulous.
The mother said as the police investigated they visited a house but the people there said they were not aware of the incident. However, later a man was arrested with the phones in his possession.
“One day we went to the station and we saw this guy sitting on the bench in the station and my son told me that he was one of the three who attacked him. I told this to the police and indicated that my son was identifying the man as one of his attacker and they placed him in the lock-ups,” she recalled.
The next day the man was charged and placed on bail and the case will come up later this month.
“I don’t want this matter to die and from my investigation it is like this a usual thing that these guys do because the police seem to know exactly where to go. And when I asked the detective what they will charge the man with, he said he is thinking because it was not like the men rob him, it was him negotiating. And I look at him like if he was mad and said it has to be robbery with violence because of the weapons they used,” the woman said.
“It is horrible, horrible that things like these can happen and that our children have to endure these things. I don’t think my son is going to be the same ever again. Think he is going to be fearful all the time. As a parent, I don’t know what to do really.”
The woman also said they have not been able to locate the third boy who was with her son that night. She said while he attends GTI, her son does not know his address and his phone was stolen and is now in police custody.
“I am just hoping that he is okay and if it is that he was attacked then it should be reported and he should get justice,” she said.
“We have to do better. We must do better,” the woman said sadly even as she vowed to ensure that her son gets the justice he deserves.
“It was hard to grow up as a mixed-race child, but this is by far the worst I have experienced,” she said.
I suggested that the young man should receive counselling even as they fight for justice and the mother said she will ensure this happens.
