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Mother, son shot in ‘fowl cock’ row
– Suspect on the run, wife and child abandon home
The injured woman, who is now battling for her life.
A row over “fowl cocks” ended with a McDoom, East Bank Demerara man opening fire and critically wounding a 38-year-old woman and her 21-year old son.
Abiola Edie, who was shot in her face, is now a patient at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Georgetown Public Hospital. Her son, Martin Barker, who was shot twice in his chest, has also been admitted to the same hospital.
The suspect, who is said to be their neighbour, has gone into hiding. The incident has left a wedge between residents of the East Bank Demerara community forcing relatives of the suspect to flee their home to escape possible retaliation.
Police confirmed the incident in a statement. They said that about 11:00 hours yesterday, Martin Barker, of Middle Street, Mc Doom Village, was involved in an argument with another man in the community, during which the man pulled out a firearm.
The police said that Barker’s mother, Abiola Edie, intervened and was shot to her face, after which the man turned the gun on Barker, shooting him in his chest, and escaping.
When this newspaper arrived on the scene, there was a huge pool of blood on the road bearing evidence of the serious injury to one of the victims.
Eyewitnesses told this newspaper that during the argument, the suspect who is a scrap metal dealer, ran into his yard and came back with a gun which he used to discharge several rounds at Edie and her son.
“Some fowl dey rowing for and he run in fuh he gun and come out back,” one neighbour told this newspaper. “You gun shoot people fuh a fowl?” another neighbour asked.
Edie’s mother, Pamela, yesterday sat anxiously in front of the hospital’s ICU awaiting news of her daughter’s condition.
The frustrated woman told Kaieteur News that she was standing a few steps from where her daughter and grandson were shot. She recalled hearing “a few gunshots and when I watch I see me daughter fall down.”
“…He (suspect) say me grandson trouble he fowl but me grandson don’t trouble anybody thing. He wasn’t at home, but like when he come home, he wife tell he how my grandson went fighting he fowl and he come out and start arguing over that,” the woman related.
Martin Barker
The elderly Edie said that she remembered hearing the suspect saying “…. ‘I gun f*&! all of you up’ and he do exactly that. He went in, collect he gun and shoot like he mad.” Kaieteur News understands that doctors at the hospital have listed the woman’s condition as ‘critical,’ while her son is said to be in a stable state.
Neighbours said that immediately after the shooting the badly wounded woman and her son were rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital where they were treated immediately.
The police, who were informed, arrived at McDoom and facilitated the reputed wife of the suspect and her infant children in fleeing their home to get away from any potential danger from the increasingly hostile neighbours.
As news of the shooting spread, another son of the injured woman who was not at the scene when the incident occurred came up a while later only to be told of the plight of his mother and brother.
Minutes after he arrived at McDoom he reportedly received a telephone call from the suspect who expressed regret over the shooting.
However, this failed to placate the young man.
“He callin me and tellin me bout he sorry he shoot me mother. He tell me dat me brother run up to he with some knife and he had to shoot me …mother, dat is wha he callin me and tellin me,” the angry young man blurted out.
The neighbours were unanimous in their claims that it was the suspect who was brandishing a gun and a knife.
Up to press time, the suspect had not been arrested.
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