Army increases patrols in Buxton
Death, wounding under probe
Stabroek News
September 28, 2002
Following the death of two commuters in Buxton yesterday morning and attacks on a police station and an army squad on Thursday night, the Guyana Defence Force has stepped up patrols to ensure safe passage through the village.
GDF sources last night said the army has intensified its patrols in the troubled community and a GINA release said the GDF has increased its presence in the Buxton/Annandale area due to the escalating crime rate in the country.
Members of the state media were given a protected tour of the village following yesterday morning's shooting deaths of two men passing through Buxton. (See story on page 3.) GINA said the state media were taken to observe the security measures being implemented.
"At the time, there was relative calm. Several military vehicles could be seen patrolling the area." The GINA press release noted.
GINA observed that patrols have been mounted along the railway embankment and the public road, but said commuters were utilising the public road, rather than the railway embankment. The release quoted Major Hubert Meusa as saying that the increased presence of the army serves to renew public confidence in the capability of the army and to allow the effective flow of traffic in and out of the areas.
Meanwhile the police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of one man and the wounding of another following an attack on an army patrol Thursday night at Buxton.
Dead is Clyde Duncan, whose body was discovered on Company Road, early yesterday morning, in the vicinity where the exchange had occurred. Members of the army rushed another man, Clyde McRae, to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) with a gunshot wound to his shoulder.
The GINA release stated: "According to the Officer-in-Charge, Captain Dwayne Nurse, the soldiers were travelling westward on the embankment when they stopped to clear away logs and benches, which were blocking the roadway. A hail of bullets from persons in the area then assailed them. The soldiers returned fire and one person was killed in the process. Another is presently hospitalised."
Immediately following the 8 pm shooting Thursday, army sources told this newspaper that 33-year-old McRae, of Wilkens Street, Buxton, was one of two men who had fired on the army patrol. It was while he was being transported to the city hospital the patrol intercepted the hire car and took McRae and the driver into custody at the nearby Vigilance Police Station.
Stabroek News understands that McRae's sister and another woman, who were in the car with the men, were released almost immediately.
But speaking to Stabroek News from his hospital bed yesterday, McRae said that prior to the attack on the soldiers, he was accompanying his girlfriend to her home, walking south along the Friendship road, towards the embankment.
He said he saw a GDF vehicle with its headlights off, driving slowing towards them. McRae said, almost simultaneously, he heard gunshots. The army, however, said its patrol came under fire at the corner of Company Road and the railway embankment.
McRae, though, told this newspaper that because the Friendship Road was relatively dark, he had decided to turn into Company Road, another street running parallel to Friendship Road. He said that street was reasonably well lit.
According to the man, as soon as he turned into Company Road, he felt the impact of a bullet and, realising that he had been shot, began running in the direction of his home, some 150 metres away.
When he arrived home, friends and family members placed him in a car to transport him to the hospital, but the party was stopped by the military patrol. McRae said although the ranks at the station recognised that he was wounded, they ordered him and the driver to leave the vehicle and lie on the ground.
The soldiers subsequently took him to the hospital where, he said, he underwent surgery for a gunshot wound in the right shoulder. He said he had lost consciousness after being placed in the GDF vehicle.
Two other men were arrested Thursday night after the shooting incident. Sources said one of the men was riding north along Company Road, when the soldiers stopped and searched him. The other man was heading in the same direction and he was also picked up.
Just about half an hour before the army patrol came under attack, a large band of men had opened fire on the Vigilance Police Station, dispersing only after the police returned fire. No one was hit in that exchange.
Chairman of the Buxton/Foulis Neighbourhood Democratic Council, Randolph Blair told Stabroek News last night that the previous evening's incidents were sparked by the shooting of a Buxtonian by the police earlier that evening.
"From since then, everything seems to be haywire," the community leader said promising to give a more informed comment today. He mentioned that he was forced to act as an intermediary between Duncan's mother and the soldiers yesterday morning, following the discovery of the man's body.
According to the NDC Chairman, the army patrol had wanted to remove the body, but the woman insisted that she had already called the parlour. Tensions were high over the matter, Blair said.