THE three police ranks implicated in Friday night’s high-speed chase of suspected bandits around the city which ended with the accidental shooting and subsequent demise of  21-year-old Dameon Belgrave have reportedly been placed under “close arrest.” This was confirmed by the police in a release yesterday which stated, inter alia, that three of the suspects who were in the motor car that was being chased have been arrested and are in police custody; that the motor car in which they were joyriding has been detained; and “the three ranks who were on the mobile police patrol” giving chase “have been placed under close arrest as the investigations continue.”
The release goes on to say that around 21:30hrs  Friday night, “ranks of a mobile police patrol at “B” Field, Sophia, challenged the occupants of motor car PGG 3506 after it was observed that they were attempting to evade the police as the patrol approached.
It says that in the ensuing chase “around the streets of Georgetown… the motor car, PGG 3506, eventually stopped in Hadfield Street, and five men exited the vehicle,” and that it was “during efforts to arrest them” that “rounds were discharged, and it was later learnt that Damion Belgrave, 21 years, of Middle Street, Pouderoyen, WBD, who was standing on the roadway in the vicinity of the White Castle Fish Shop had been shot to his left side. He was pronounced DOA at the GPHC.”
According to Belgrave’s mother, Donna Sunker, he would have celebrated his 22nd birthday yesterday. She said he’d recently begun working on the census in Lethem, and had come home to celebrate his birthday. She said he would normally enjoy his birthday with friends, and that was exactly what he had been doing when he met his demise.
The grieving mother said her son’s friends told her that they were at the White Castle Fish Shop on Hadfield and John Streets in the Werk-en-Rust area hanging out when they heard the sound of two gunshots being discharged.
They said that upon seeing Belgrave fall to the ground, they thought he was just joking as usual. They however became worried when he did not get up; and when they checked him, he was bleeding from a wound under his left arm, in the region of his heart.
The police, she was told, took their own sweet time before deciding to take her son to the hospital, by which time he had already died. “His friends told me that the police keep putting he in and out of the police vehicle before they take he to the hospital. They say that when the police was putting and taking he out the vehicle, he was still alive,” Sunker said.
Sunker said the police never informed her about the incident, and how her son had met his demise. She said she was told of the incident by her son’s friends, and she went to the hospital. While there, the police did not approach her to say anything about her son’s death.
The mother of three is hoping that in investigating the matter, the relevant authorities would afford the family some closure to their grief.
She described her late son as a pleasant individual, who had always been quiet and had no trouble with anyone. When at home, her son had been so peaceable that nobody would know he was there, because he would be on his phone or watching television.
Police recently shot and killed 17-year-old Shaquille Grant in Agricola, EBD, one day before his 18th birthday. After the matter had been investigated, three of their ranks were charged last week with Grant’s murder, but only Terrence Wallace appeared in court to answer to the charge. He has been remanded to prison, while ‘Wanted’ bulletins have been issued by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for the arrest of the other two officers -- Warren Blue and Jamal Lewis.