Seven-year-old girl hit by bullet as police chase ‘bandit’ in Sparendaam

Sep 16, 2012 News

A mother is thankful that her seven-year-old daughter is still alive after being grazed with a bullet during a mid morning police raid in Sparendaam, East Coast Demerara. Rajkumarie Hargobin said around 12:15 hours yesterday she saw sparks in the air while sitting in her living room at 54 West Road, Sparendaam but paid it no mind.
Mere seconds later she heard what sounded like a gunshot and she heard her daughter screaming in the kitchen.

The bullet hole on the chair

“My daughter was in the kitchen cleaning the stove and she start screaming, and I run towards she while she crying and I see a chair from the dining table tumble over,”.
Hargobin added that she instinctively knew that bullets were being fired so she got her other two children, ages six and 10, and placed them to lie on the floor.
“After the noise stop I run outside and I see at least four policemen with guns and I say my child get injure and a bullet come in the house and all the policeman do was suck he teeth and say ‘is nah we shoot, is de bandit shoot’.”
The woman said that none of the policemen even attempted to come into her home to investigate but just continued their search in an empty lot nearby. They subsequently left the area.
Hargobin told this publication that shortly after she decided to check her kitchen to see what caused the damage to her chair.
“When I check I see a hole through the chair foot and splinters of wood about the place and is my daughter find a bullet.”
The woman showed the abrasion which her daughter sustained as a result of the bullet which entered her house.
The woman said that she is pleading with the police to carry out their exercise in a more careful manner since innocent persons can be hurt.
Hargobin said that it is for the same reason she relocated thinking that she would have been out of harm’s way.
“When I use to live at the front of the village is the same thing use to happen. One night I was standing on me verandah and a bullet pass me and go straight through the glass window. This is something the police always doing in Plaisance.”