Granger orders investigation into deadly seawall shooting

By Fareeza Haniff

Commander-in-Chief, President David Granger has instructed Commissioner of Police (ag), David Ramnarine to investigate the circumstances under which three suspected bandits were killed by ranks of the Police Force on March 15 at the Georgetown Seawall.

The shooting was thoroughly discussed at the level of the National Security Committee, following varying accounts of what transpired on the day in question.

“It is my instruction that in any occasion where there is the death of a person by unnatural means, that death should be investigated, particularly in the [Guyana] Defence and Police Forces and we have not received, I have not received on my desk, a report. I think the Minister of Public Security has received a report. But we’ve ordered an investigation into the circumstances under which the men came to be killed,” the Commander-in-Chief told reporters today at State House when questioned.

The aftermath of the shooting has left more questions than answers and the family of the men believe they were executed by the police.

The three men shot dead were: 46-year old Dextroy “Dutty” Cordis of Grove, East Bank Demerara; 37-year-old Kwame Assanah; and 57-year old Errol “Dynamite” Adams.

Police say that two of the dead men were about to rob a customer who had just left a city bank when ranks on a patrol intervened, causing an exchange of gunfire.

But a young labourer, who claims he was working on the rooftop of a nearby building said that the three men killed by Police were in fact executed, with no “shoot-out’ taking place, and with one of them being beaten first.

Given the questionable circumstances surrounding the incident, President Granger noted that the file from the investigation should be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) “to determine whether there is any blameworthiness in the death of the persons.”

“We are not silent, I mean, the response that we’ve made is decisive and effective and the Commissioner of Police has received clear instructions about investigation,” President Granger said, in what seems to be a direct response to former Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC) and prominent Attorney, Nigel Hughes.

Hughes is representing the eyewitness to the shooting and the family of Cordis; he told a news conference on Monday that he is not at all surprised at this Government’s silence on the gunning down of the three men and that the conduct of this government is no different than that of the former People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration.