By Leroy Smith
The woman, whose son was reportedly the target of the Tuesday afternoon downtown shooting by police has explained that the youth was wrongfully accused.
The mother of five, Linda Forde, in an interview with News Room, explained that her only son, Kelsie Benjamin was spotted running in the vicinity of the High Street, when police shot at him believing him to be a criminal.
The woman says her son told her he was running from the brother of the young lady with whom he had a misunderstanding.
“There was this girl and she bring her family to my son, where in my son had a friend. a police who had on a pink shirt yesterday afternoon, pull out a gun, send up a warning shot in the air, my son started to run down Demico straight to catch Linden park where George was at Timehri park, pull out his gun and start to shy shot behind my son where one of the bullet hit the woman on her hip. He go and tell his colleagues my son had a gun, my son never had a gun” Forde said.
The woman, who was not at the scene during the incident which led to a bystander being shot, noted that she received news of the ordeal from a relative and is very grateful that her son is still alive.
“Yesterday afternoon I was sleeping when I get a call from my family saying that Kelsie have some problem pon de park, where as a police open firearm pon him. Where I stand up, get up out a my bed and I don’t know what to do…I get diarrhoea right away. I seh father I thank you that my son ain’t get shot, all the bullets just pass my son” she said.
Forde further noted that her son related being with a friend when police officers subsequently came in a van looking for him and “saying he is a bandit and he snatch some chain, he rob somebody and he start to shoot out at the police.”
Asked why she handed over the young man to the police, the single mother of five said “I turn my son into the police because I want to know why the police shot behind my son, he is not no criminal…The sergeant come and tell me that he want see him just to clear things off the air and then I gon get my son.”
She was promised that after clearing up the misunderstanding, her son would be released from custody, however “when they done cook wuh they gah cook-up, they say my son got to deh in custody for three days…my son is a school child… This is not it, the police must know wrong from wrong and stop hiding up for their mattie police. It got to stop.”
Linda Forde of Dr. Charles Scheme Soesdyke East Bank Demerara is calling for a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the shooting incident.
During the shootout on Tuesday at the Timehri bus park, a woman, Jean Rodrigues was accidently shot in the lower back and is presently a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The police constable who is said to have fired during the time of the incident is under close arrest.
Investigations are ongoing.
