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Family calls for probe into use of excessive force
Police shooting of Eccles dredge-owner…
The family of an Eccles dredge owner whom police shot dead earlier this month during a standoff is calling for justice. The members are insisting that excessive force was used.
Angold Cox, called ‘Coxie’ and ‘Bobbington’ is to be laid to rest tomorrow, two weeks after he was killed in his Cowpen Street home at Eccles.
Yesterday, Cox’s cousin, Hazel Gittens, his overseas-based sister, Kim Benjamin, and Patricia Evans, 28, who said she saw the shooting, disclosed that the family has already approached the Guyana Human Right Association to lodge a complaint.
The family is now preparing to also visit the Police Complaints Authority.
Police in a statement, on May 2, the day of the incident, said that about 10:30 hours, ranks responded to a report of threats at Cowpen Street, Eccles, East Bank Demerara, where vendor Suzette Fraser, 42, was being threatened by Angold Cox, 54, who was armed with a knife and a piece of wood and threatening to kill her.
According to the police, during efforts to arrest him, Angold Cox attacked the ranks and lashed Constable 19811 Griffith on his feet and stabbed Constable 19907 Wallace on his left upper arm causing the police to resort to the use of force and he was shot.
Cox was taken to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Police said that information was subsequently received from members of the public that Angold Cox was of unsound mind.
However, the family members refuted this and insisted that neighbours saw when police standing outside his door, shot him.
“This was not a scuffle in de house. The policeman with the gun was outside the door and he fire bullets in the air and then shoot Uncle Bobbington,” Evans insisted.
Unhappy relatives: Cousin, Hazel Gittens and Kim Benjamin, a sister, of Angold Cox
Her 12-year-old son also claimed that he saw the shooting and that the policeman was standing outside of the home.
The family also refuted the police statements that one policeman was hurt in the foot after he was “lashed”.
According to the women, the policeman who hurt his foot fell after he attempted to climb from the side steps to the verandah.
“He fell through the step and the board break up. That is how he hurt heself.”
The women claimed that neighbours are scared to come forward but several persons saw that Cox tried to prevent them from entering his home, using chairs and other furniture to barricade the door.
“Even if he was a threat to them, they could shoot he elsewhere. This is murder and we want justice,” Gittens said.
During that incident a policeman attached to Eve Leary’s Tactical Service Unit (TSU), was also taken to the hospital for a stab wound to his arm. His injury was said to be non-life threatening.
The shot dredge owner was dragged down several flights of stairs, half naked, before being thrown into a police vehicle, neighbours said.
According to Evans, shortly after 10:00 hrs on May 2, her uncle had called her. “He tell me that police surround he home and want to kill him.”
Evans said that she jumped into a taxi, from her home at Eccles New Scheme, and raced to the scene.
“My brother has no criminal record. He does cuss but don’t trouble nobody. His business records are up to date. He only come out a few weeks now from the bush,” his sister, Cheryl claimed.
Angold Cox
One relative claimed that Cox was not mad as was being peddled by some.
“He has some domestic problems and was not sleeping too much. So he was not mad. The police could ah shoot he pun he foot or hand or something.”
Neighbours confirmed that Cox and his wife separated five days before the shooting, after a domestic dispute.
Police from Providence were called the previous day after someone complained about a large fire Cox lit in his backyard. They reportedly took away a music set from the miner.
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