Relatives of Linden dead cry for justice

Jul 20, 2012 News

---

By Neil Marks and Jenelle Carter

Daylight greets a mother struggling to eke out a living as a night security guard with news that her mentally challenged son is lying in the mortuary of the Wismar Hospital. An aunt recounts how her nephew would rub her elbows and cheeks as he played with her. He would talk to her about things that bother him. A pensioner who can do nothing with the “two cents” she gets from the government is left slumped into her small living room sofa staring at the ground, contemplating how she will make out now that her son – her breadwinner – was gunned down.
Their stories are the same – the ones they love were in a struggle for a cause they saw as just. They were protesting a hike in electricity rates in a town where economic growth has been stunted by, among other things, a lack of jobs.
Their point was clear: it’s not that they don’t want to pay the higher rates, they just can’t afford to.
And so, their men, one boy not just yet passed his teenage years, joined the Linden protests to make their point.
In the process, the Police opened fire, and their bodies fell to the ground. Their relatives have but one request: justice.
Jacqueline Bouyea went to her night job at Retrieve, a good distance from her Wisroc home. She had to work through the night, because the other security guard who was to relieve her was stranded on the road because of the protests.
“When I was on my way home, people were telling me that my son is dead,” Bouyea said. She waited for hours at the Wismar Hospital mortuary to identify the body. She had hoped that everyone was wrong, that her 24-year-old Shemroy was at the corner “hustling” as usual.
When she entered the mortuary, Ms Bouyea cringed in grief. Her hands clutched her stomach, and the tears flowed as the reality set in. Her son was indeed dead.
Shemroy Bouyea was mentally challenged, but he was a humorous character, dancing on the road at times. Residents would pay him a “small piece” to run errands for them, and they found him dependable and honest.
“I feel it bad,” Ms. Bouyea reflected as she looked to the heavens and beat her chest.
Her wailing was overtaken by loud screams from Devina Chapman, the aunt of 17-year-old Ron Somerset.
Ever since his mother died, Ron was in the care of aunts who cared for him as their own. The teen’s last words to one of his aunts was that he was tired and wasn’t going anywhere for the day.
“He tell me he ain’t going nowhere but I ain’t know why he left the house… The next thing I hear is Ron dead,” said an inconsolable Ms. Chapman.
She said she had “been through thick and thin” with her nephew who had been in her care for years. She described Ron as a very peaceful and helpful lad who did all he could to assist her in the home.
Clutching a pair of sneakers he had on at the time of his death, Devina said like every other teenager her nephew got into the usual “stuff” but was always pleasant. She was at her Wisroc home when she got the news of his demise. She recalled that her nephew was always willing to learn and elevate himself.
“When he finished school, we sent him to trade school. At one time he even start working at an internet café. He always try to keep himself occupied.”
Another one of Ron’s aunts, Leslyn Boyce, said she had just returned to Linden and was on her way home when she noticed a large crowd at the main access bridge. The woman recalled that as she was heading to the bridge she noticed persons running and carrying injured persons.
‘I just see these people running and people fetching people covered in blood, so I trying to avoid the crowd and next thing I hear somebody say Ron get shoot, so I turn around and I see somebody fetching my nephew,” she related.
However, by the time the injured teen arrived at the hospital he was pronounced dead.
Yesterday at the Wismar Hospital Mortuary it was a heart-rending sight as relatives of the deceased gathered and waited for some seven hours to get a glimpse of their remains. The relatives were forced to provide transportation for the mortician from McKenzie to Wismar.
“We sitting here all morning no police ain’t come to tell us anything, we just waiting to get a look at our family…they were killed cold-bloodedly and now we just have to sit here waiting like if we begging, just to see these boys,” Leslyn Boyce stated emphatically.
Somerset’s relatives insist that someone must be held accountable for the deaths.
“The police are here to protect and serve, and yet they come here and treat us like animals… They are the ones who aggravated the situation. We want answers for Ron’s death… somebody has to take responsibility for what happened.”
Also at the mortuary, some close friends of Somerset were moved to tears as they got a glimpse of his remains.
In a small apartment in the Wismar Housing Scheme, 79-year-old Daphne Lewis recounted how her son Ivan, 46, was the one who took care of her. Ivan, who took whatever jobs came his way, was the one who mainly supported her, as the “two cents pension money” could do very little.
“All I hear is that meh son dead,” she told Kaieteur News. “He is my support. What will I do now?”
Ivan has also left to mourn his two children, aged 17 and 19.
Ivan’s eldest sister, Monica Casting, said her son was in the protest, and when she heard that the Police opened fire, she ran out to see if her son was ok.
“I got a call from my son that he was ok, but that my brother was dead,” Casting related.
Ivan’s brother, Clive, saw him lying dead on the ground.
We want justice,” cried Clive. “There are three ways you disperse a crowd and one of them is not opening fire using live rounds.”
The relatives want a full investigation into how their loved ones were killed and they keep repeating that they have only one demand: justice.

---

---