Probe launched into altercation between former Coalition Minister and PPP City Councillor

Aug 04, 2020 News

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Police have launched an investigation into the altercation which occurred between former Youth Affairs minister within the Ministry of Presidency, Simona Broomes and a PPP Georgetown City Councillor, Deon Young.

This was confirmed by Commander of ‘A’ Division, Phillip Azore in a telephone conversation with this media house late yesterday.
In a live video posted by Broomes on her Facebook fan page at around 08:00hrs, she along with other individuals, was seen assaulting Young and another man at a location in Sophia.
Broomes detailed in her live that she had just finished her morning exercises when she spotted a man with a flap-hat dismantling some signs with a hammer that were planted on government reserves in front of her house. She alleged that she confronted the man for taking down the signs that she had spent money to erect. Broomes claimed that the man responded by saying, ‘We want to show you who in power now and who running the country now’. The ex-minister also made claims that the man threatened to shoot her before entering a waiting car and driving off.
Broomes then entered her car and instructed her driver to follow the car, which they trailed to A-Field, South Sophia where it stopped at a bridge. Two men exited and walked over into Plum Park. Broomes too stepped out of her SUV along with her driver and ran behind the men. As they got closer, her driver took out his firearm and began firing shots in air. The men, who they were in pursuit of, immediately halted and turned around.Broomes then proceeded to accuse the men of wanting to kill her and directly asked, “Who send y’all”? This was quickly followed up by an assault unleashed on the men. Broomes instructed her driver to grab one of the men who was seen carrying some metal signs and a hammer. She then began shoving and slapping the other who was identified as Deon Young, a Georgetown City Councillor affiliated with the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
Nearby residents and other persons passing by came to the ex-minister’s assistance, one of them armed with a baseball bat. Broomes was then heard making allegations that the men threatened to kill her with a firearm. This angered the people who began beating the men. Near the end of the video, the former minister was heard telling persons not to film the men as they were being assaulted.
This media house made contact with Young to get his version of what transpired. Young said that he was approached by a man who he identified only as “James” to take down the signs and replace them with environmentally friendly ones. When asked who James was, Young could not give a definitive answer. He detailed, however that he had picked up a worker early that morning in a car and headed to the area to remove the signs.

“We arrived there just after 07:00hrs, I remained in the car and the worker went out to take down the signs,” said Young. He denied claims that the man or he had threatened the former minister. “There was not even,” he told Kaieteur News, “a confrontation between us and Broomes. We did not see her, as a matter of fact, we did not even know that she was following us.”
Young told this newspaper that while walking along a road in Plum Park, Sophia, to uplift the “environmentally friendly signs”, he and the worker heard gunshots.
“We stopped and turned around,” he said, “it was then I saw Broomes running coming towards us and shouting, ‘Dem treaten fuh kill me, all yuh hold dem’…”
The PPP-affiliated councillor said that he took off his mask for Broomes to recognise that he was her former schoolmate, but she nevertheless, along with others, assaulted him and the worker.
Kaieteur News contacted the Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine, to verify claims that instructions to remove the signs came from the City Council. In his response, Narine made it clear that councillor Young did not receive any such instructions from himself or the Council. He said that in 2019, Broomes had sought his permission to erect the signs and develop the reserved area. “I visited the area and told her yes go right ahead because indeed the place was unkempt and filled with garbage”, said Narine.
When asked if he had given her a legal and written approval to do so, he responded, “I think I had given her a document yes… I can’t really remember but I did tell her that she could put up the signs”.
When this paper contacted Broomes for further details on the incident, she stated that she would soon give another Facebook live. Up to press time, this paper had not seen any such video.
During the assault, Young received a cut to his hand and lacerations to his arms and feet while the worker sustained injuries to the head and feet as well. A report was later lodged at the Turkeyen Police Station by both parties.

 

 

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