Mob kills South Ruimveldt man on his way home

Dec 10, 2008 News

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…killers identified as community police

The police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Hardel Haynes, 43, an electrician of Spurwing Drive, South Ruimveldt, Georgetown. Haynes died in what appears to be a mob killing that went wrong.
Police say that their investigations have revealed that Haynes was reportedly beaten by so far unknown persons at Perai Square, East La Penitence, at about 02:15 hours yesterday.
He was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, where he died while receiving medical attention.

This newspaper understands that Haynes was riding a bicycle on his way home when he was attacked by a group of men, who began to physically assault him, apparently mistaking him for a thief.
Christine Canterbury, of Perai Square, East La Penitence, said that she got up at around 02:00 hrs, after hearing people calling her name and crying out for ‘thief.’
On going outside, she was informed by some neighbours that they had seen a man fleeing her yard with a television set.
She said that on checking her premises, she observed that three louvre panes were missing from windows in her verandah.
Two other panes had also been pulled out from windows near her front step. She also observed that her back door was open and her television set was missing.
Canterbury said that the thief fled through an alleyway, where he left the television set near a dumpsite a short distance away. The residents retrieved the television set, which she identified as hers.
She said that, shortly after, she heard another commotion.
She then saw some other residents with a man, whose clothing was muddied.
The man’s forehead was swollen and the residents had to hold him up, since he appeared to be weak and was unable to speak.
She explained that she was unable to say whether this was the same man who had broken into her house, since she had never laid eyes on the thief.
According to her, the residents said that they had apprehended the man since he had ‘looked suspicious’.
Canterbury said that, on the advice of a police rank who was among the residents, they took the man to the East La Penitence Police Station.
“The next thing that we know is that he dead,” she said.
Speaking with this newspaper yesterday, Haynes’s reputed wife, Cheryl Sidney, a special constable attached to the Ministry of Home Affairs, said that her husband left home on Monday morning in a taxi to take his television set to be repaired in Norton Street.
He then left for Beterverwagting to undertake some other work that relates to his profession.
The woman said that Haynes did call home, at about 16:30 hours on Monday, while she was asleep, and told his daughter where he was and that he would be home when he was finished.
Sydney then left for work.
Later on Monday night, her daughter called her and informed her that she was not getting in contact with her father, which she found strange.
“I realized that Hardel drinking, because he would not answer he phone whenever he is drinking,” Sydney told this newspaper.
But she did call Haynes’s cellular phone at around 23:00 hours on Monday, and she, too, was not able to make contact with him.
She said that, at about 3:00 hours yesterday, her son called her from home and gave her a telephone number which he urged her to call.
“He tell me that somebody just call and say that Hardel getting beat. When I call the number, was his (Haynes) nephew,” Sydney said.
She told this newspaper that Haynes’s nephew explained to her that he had called his uncle’s number and overheard several voices urging the beaters to desist from their actions.
According to Sydney, her husband’s nephew said that when he called back the cell phone a male answered.
The person identified himself as Haynes, but the nephew, who is familiar with his uncle’s voice, insisted that he speak with Haynes.
“With that, he was hearing in the background female and male voice, ‘Y’all don’t kill this man. Y’all don’t lash this man in he head’. It was a set of noise,” Sydney related.
Several other calls were made to Haynes’s cellular phone, and on every occasion the male answered it.
“The nephew put his wife to call. She identified herself as a wife. Their words were, ‘Look, you so-and-so wife want talk to you. Talk to she! Talk to she!’ but he could not speak to her,” the dead man’s wife told Kaieteur News.
The nephew then informed her that he was going to the East La Penitence Police Station to make some enquiries.
Sydney said that she then called the station, and at first the telephone rang out.
She then called her husband’s cell phone, and a male who identified himself as a police rank told her to call the station.
By this time Sydney began to get very annoyed at the response she was getting from her colleagues in the force.
When she eventually made contact with the station, she spoke to a female corporal and enquired if her husband was there.
“Hear she, ‘Me ain’t know. They bring a man here saying he’s a thief man.’ I started to get more annoyed and had to tell them that they ain’t gat certificate with that man,” Sydney told this newspaper.
When she asked the corporal if the injured man was being taken to the hospital, she said that she was informed that there was no vehicle to do so. The telephone was then rudely hung up, she said.
Sydney said she called back the station to enquire if anyone was held in connection with the beating, but was given another rude answer.
This newspaper understands that the persons who took Haynes to the station just dumped him and left.
When asked why anyone was not detained when they brought in the badly injured Haynes to the location, a rank at the East La Penitence Police Station explained that the corporal on duty did request assistance from the police Impact Base at Brickdam, but the response was not timely.
The rank claimed that by the time the corporal, who was among two persons on duty, attempted to question those who brought Haynes there, they were all gone.
This newspaper also understands that it was a retired senior police officer who used his vehicle to take Haynes to the station.
When contacted, the retired officer declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Haynes’s nephew, who had by then arrived at the East La Penitence Police Station, accompanied the injured man to the hospital.
“They call me and tell me that he ain’t breathing. He get bad beat. Then I hear they start crying and they tell me that, yes, he dead,” a distraught Sydney reported.
Having heard the tragic news, Sydney said, she started to scream at her work place, and was given permission to go to the hospital.
“When I go, they had already tied up his face and everything. I waited until they push he to the mortuary and I asked the guys to open up the wrap. His face swell to a size, and he get a big wound to his forehead and another to his nose,” she stated.
This newspaper understands that one man has been taken into custody and is being questioned.
There are reports that Haynes was beaten by members of a community policing group in the presence of a half dressed police rank.
Divisional Commander, Assistant Commissioner Leroy Brummell, told this newspaper that investigators are looking at all aspects of the matter and he is confident that there will be charges soon.

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