Depressing conversation with Dr. Brian O’Toole

Jun 07, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

A frustrated victim of attempted murder, Dr. Brian O’Toole feels that the police need to up their game in the investigation and that the US Embassy can do more to assist. Dr. O’ Toole feels the media need to intensify their investigations.
As O’Toole spoke to me, for a fleeting moment, I wasn’t listening. My mind went back to the rule of President Jagdeo and my role as an investigative media operative. After conversation with Dr. O’Toole, I thought of how much journalism in Guyana misses Father Andrew Morrison.
In that fleeting moment that invoked the reign of Jagdeo, I knew what I would have done if the attempted murder had occurred back then. I would have penned several articles citing the untouchable status of those that the victim had pinpointed. For me it would have been a typical case of powerfully-placed people being protected by the Jagdeo state machinery.
Jagdeo is gone from power. There is a new government, but after listening to O’Toole, it seems the story of the untouchables has no ending in this country. Where are the pens and voices in Guyana on the murder attempt on O’Toole, which points to a circumstantial knowledge of three former students whose fathers have serious connections?
O’Toole has named names and the parents of these young men. He said the names are with the police. First, there is the alleged drug seller. He got expelled. He is an alleged serial distributor of the drug, ecstasy, in five high schools. I felt a slight twinge when his father was identified to me. This is a nice gentleman. I knew him as a student from UG. He is a devoted Christian preacher and has never failed to voice his appreciation for my activism. Sad he has to be in this situation.
Shortly after the expulsion, a friend of the alleged drug seller got booted out of the school too for social media postings that praise the possession and use of guns, and advising students not to attend classes on a particular day because something evil would take place at the school. Days after, the son of a prominent citizen that was a contemporary of mine during our student days at UG, took to social media to boast that the School of the Nations would face an arson attack. He was a former student at the school. The very next night, an attempt was made on O’Toole’s life.
In identifying the alleged drug seller as the gunman, the police informed O’Toole that immigration records showed he was not in Guyana on the date of the gun attack. But matters are getting complicated, because some legal advice to O’Toole centres on whether that immigration document is genuine. Only the American police can verify that. Immigration records would tell which day the alleged drug seller touched down in the US. The FBI did interview the son of the prominent professional. He said it was a joke. From thereon, the American involvement dried up.
O’ Toole is disappointed with the lukewarm approach by the American Embassy. I told him in pellucid semantics that the US cannot risk the accusation that it is getting involved in a criminal investigation in Guyana where the US hasn’t got jurisdiction and the Embassy could open itself to charges that’s why O’Toole, when many other Guyanese commit crimes in Guyana and are happily living in the US and the Embassy shows no interest.
To say you would set a school on fire in the US on your Facebook page would certainly land you in volcanic heat. But the guy committed no crime in the US. O’Toole subsequently gave the American Embassy proof of a recording made on social media by a former student who it is alleged made the arson threat. This recording is about admiration for the shooter, the dance he did after he fired the shots and his rejoicing at the attempt on O’Toole’s life. It appears the American Embassy has not responded and O’Toole is mystified. I think the Embassy is being diplomatic. Its jurisdiction is limited.
Based on what O’Toole has related so far, the shooter is one of the following three persons – the alleged drug seller, the other who boasted of the value of possessing and using guns, and the guy who is gloating over the attempted murder. But O’Toole is willing to concede that the shooter could be a friend of these three former students. It is up to the police to interrogate all three of them. But O’Toole feels there is feet-dragging. I have had this experience in my journalistic career.
The O’Toole situation involves some untouchables in this society. My sympathies go out to this great educator, Dr. Brian O’Toole.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News