Stabroek Market shooting…Ballistic test to identify shooter

Sep 22, 2016 News

A single bullet will determine the outcome of Tuesday’s shooting of an innocent passerby when a policeman shot at a teenager. They are both pointing fingers at each other over the shooting of Jean Rodrigues at the Stabroek Market, in the

Jean Rodrigues

vicinity of Timehri bus park on Tuesday.
The woman was shot in the lower back during an alleged crossfire between the police and a teenager. She was taken to the hospital where doctors removed the bullet and handed it over to the police—that bullet will identify the shooter.
Apart from that bullet, detectives have taken the policeman’s uniform and firearm for ballistic test. They are also checking for gunpowder residue on the hands of the teen and the police.
Reports are that the woman along with her family was heading to the Grove bus park when she was shot.
Sources confirmed that the police rank in question claimed that a young man was acting in a suspicious manner and when he pursued the individual, the lad opened fire, causing him to return fire. The policeman reportedly claimed that the woman was struck by a bullet from the suspect’s weapon.
However, persons at the scene said that they only saw when the policeman was chasing the individual.
“I see the lil commotion and I looking but before the police shoot, people went saying that he better don’t shoot because too many people around and next you hear is two gunshots and he still ain’t catch the man,” a taxi driver said.
A La Parfaite Harmonie bus driver claimed that the individual, who was running from the police, was not armed and even if he had a weapon in his bag, he did not have enough time to reach for it.
Early yesterday, Linda Forde, the mother of the young man who was being chased by the police rank took her son to the police station to air his side of the story.
Forde said that based on what she was informed, her son, Kelsie Benjamin, was spotted running in the vicinity of the High Street, when police shot at him believing him to be a criminal.
However, her son and a female actually had a misunderstanding and the woman’s brother got involved.
Benjamin was actually running from the woman’s brother when the police saw him and assumed that he had grabbed someone’s chain and opened fire at him. Benjamin remains in police custody assisting with information.
Rodrigues’s husband, Anthony Persaud, said that he only saw one person with a gun and that was the policeman. “The boy was running but we didn’t see him with a gun. The police fire two shots at him but only hit my wife.”
According to information, Rodrigues, her husband and their three children were heading to a wake in Grove, East Bank Demerara (EBD) around 16:40h when the incident occurred.
Persaud said that his family was in the vicinity of the Timehri bus park when they heard screams. Upon looking, they saw the police rank chasing after a man. It was while running after the individual that the rank discharged a round, hitting the woman.
“We were all standing and this man run past us and then the policeman that was chasing him fire off shots,” Persaud said.
He said that his wife was discharged from the hospital and she was at home relaxing.

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