A 19-year-old student of the Georgetown Technical Institute (GTI) died three days after he was beaten by a gang of six males, three of whom were in school uniform.
Rawle Samuel Grannum, a second-year student, succumbed on Monday at a city hospital where he was hospitalised.
Relatives explained that his skull was fractured in two places and he suffered internal bleeding. The young man never regained consciousness. He was the only child of his parents and lived at Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara.
“The doctors, everything they tried the body was rejecting because the brain was 95 per cent damaged, it’s like they put his brain in a blender, that’s how they beat him, that’s the severity of the blows,” Stacy Daniels, one of the dead teen’s aunts told the News Room.
Police have so far managed to identify one of the suspects, Regional Commander Simon McBean told the News Room on Tuesday.
“Based on our analysis it appears that eight persons including the deceased and someone else and the six persons were involved. We are reviewing footage and doing an investigation,” McBean said.
On Friday evening, Rawle was standing with a friend at the Route 45 bus park when they were attacked by the gang. The friend was injured to his left arm. It is suspected that Rawle was attacked with a hard heavy object.
“It had to be very heavy object, reports coming in that we received, some people are saying it was a baseball bat, some people are saying is a hockey stick but it had to be a very heavy object connecting to the skull to crack in two different places and to be bleeding continuously,” Stacy explained.
Another aunt, Marcia Grannum told the News Room that they received a call that he was involved in an accident and naturally they thought it was a vehicular accident. It was not until they arrived at the hospital that they were told that he was beaten by a gang.
“We don’t know if adults were involved in the fight,” Marcia related.
However, the family is claiming that Rawle was not given medical attention while at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
“He was there about 4:30 pm, we reach there about 6:30 pm and no medical attention was given to my nephew.”
Marcia further related that at 07:30 pm when they inquired from the staff there, they were reportedly told there were eight other patients in front of him and that he will simply have to wait. But the young man collapsed after he complained that his head was hurting and never regained consciousness.
“…. he went unconscious and my sister-in-law, they rush him to the Mercy Hospital and is from there he started to receive medical attention,” Marcia said.
When contacted, an official at the Georgetown Public Hospital could not offer any comments on the incident and stated that a report was being compiled.
At the Mercy Hospital, a CT scan showed that the young man was bleeding in his brain.
“I am of the belief that if some sort of medical attention was given to my nephew, he could have been alive today but none was given to him while he was at the GPHC,” Marcia said.
The family remains baffled as to why the young man was attacked. Marcia explained that it might be a case of ‘mistaken identity.’
“My nephew was not at school on Thursday, he went to sports with his father so we don’t know if they had any fight or so because somebody was saying they were looking for a guy and apparently they thought my nephew was the person but it wasn’t my nephew,” the dead teen’s aunt said.
Before the young man collapsed, he told his father that he did not recognise any of the suspects.
“When he was at the hospital, when he was in his conscious state he was asked if he recognised them or know them and he said: ‘No dad’.
“We want justice and closure, it is just a big what, what happened, just help us to understand,” Stacy pleaded.
Meanwhile, Stacy Daniels said her nephew was a well-rounded and humble child. He was studying to become an electrical engineer.
“If you call Rawley 100 times, do this for and do that for me, he lived just behind me, he would do it without a frown, he never spoke harshly or indiscipline to anyone.
“He didn’t deserve to be murdered,” the grieving relative said.
What a beating! That young man could not live. The blows were too severe and too much. I do hope that justice is served and that all the perpetrators would be held. Even if he had lived he would have been like s vegetable. My sympathy goes out to his grieving parents (especially because he was an only child for them) and to his other relatives.