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Tacama shooting…Shot lieutenant, recruit give different versions of incident

May 23, 2014 News

-army source
Lieutenant Othneil Hope and recruit Vernon Harding have reportedly given conflicting statements about how they both ended up with bullet wounds last Sunday at the Colonel John Clarke Military School at Tacama.
While the army is still to make an official report on the progress of the investigation, Kaieteur News was told yesterday that both ranks have admitted that the shooting occurred in a barrack-room.
Sources have also confirmed that Lieutenant Hope’s handgun caused the injuries to both ranks, but say that all reports suggest that the weapon was discharged accidentally.
Kaieteur News was told that Lieutenant Hope is a training officer on the Tacama base.
According to an army source, the officer has told investigators that the shooting occurred in the barrack-room. However, according to the source, he has given a “totally different version” of how the incident transpired.
This newspaper has confirmed that Harding, the recruit, alleged that Lieutenant Hope had accidentally shot himself in the leg with his own firearm.
“The soldier (Hope) said that he went to the lieutenant’s assistance and the gun went off accidentally and he (Hope) was shot in the arm and abdomen,” the army source said.
Army sources said that it is “unusual” for a rank to have a loaded weapon in a barrack-room.
At present, Hope is being treated in the Georgetown Hospital’s High Dependency Unit (HDU), while Lieutenant Hope is reportedly being treated at the army’s medical centre at Camp Ayanganna.
Harding’s relatives said yesterday that they are still waiting for a comment from the army.
His mother, Vanita Harding, had said on Sunday that she overheard ranks at the GPHC saying that Lieutenant Hope was cleaning his firearm and accidentally shot himself and her son.
Harding has a one-year-old daughter and reportedly enlisted in the army last month. In a statement issued on Sunday, the GDF said that approximately 4:30 p.m., two ranks stationed at the Colonel John Clarke Military School at Tacama were injured when two rounds were accidentally discharged from a firearm.
It stated that the Guyana Defence Force has initiated an investigation and that further details would be released as they are made available. The investigators had still not returned from Tacama up to late yesterday.

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