THE police search is on for the suspect who fatally shot 38-year-old Patrick Boodie as he attempted to enquire about a squabble involving his sibling at High Dam, Mount Sinai, commonly known as Angoy’s Avenue, a squatting community on the eastern fringe of the Berbice township of New Amsterdam.A post-mortem determined that Boodie sustained seven gunshots about the body.

Investigations have revealed that at about 17:20 hrs on Wednesday last, 44-year-old Calvin Charles, brother of Patrick Boodie, was involved in an argument with a man over a grass fire that had spread from Charles’s yard to the man’s neighbouring premises. The argument escalated into a confrontation involving the man and his brother, respectively armed with a cutlass and a handgun, and Calvin Charles and Patrick Boodie. Calvin Charles sustained incised wounds to his head and shoulder, while Patrick Boodie was shot several times to his body, and succumbed to his injuries.

Hospitalised overnight at the New Amsterdam Hospital, Charles was discharged just in time to relate the incident to Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who was visiting the Angoy’s Avenue community during midday hours on Thursday.

Recalling the incident, Charles said his sister had died and left her children behind, and those children were told on Wednesday that they have to find alternative accommodation. “So, along with my brother and nephews, we decided to erect a house for them.”

Pointing to the lumber, which had evidently been left lying for an extended period, Charles said: “We had partially erected the frame. I took my lighter and light the grass. Whilst walking to see where the material burn, I pushed my head to see where was burnt. The suspect then chucked me, and I chucked him back. Shortly afterwards, I received a lash to my head while his brother, who was armed with ‘a pen knife’ inflicted an injury to my right shoulder.

“I then ran to my brother Patrick, who lives about two hundred metres away. I say to him, ‘them people want trouble’. My brother gently walked with me to find out what was happening, but before he can ask what happen, it was rapid gunfire. My brother continued to walk, although he was shot. He walked several feet before he stumbled and fell into a drain. He was then pulled out then taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where he later succumbed.”

Meanwhile, over at Patrick Boodie’s home, his widow Sonia, while expressing sorrow over the loss of her husband, noted that if other persons had been around, a bloodbath might have ensued, as the shooter was ‘trigger happy’ to be firing shots indiscriminately.

She said that after taking her critically injured husband to the New Amsterdam Hospital, one of the doctors there, instead of helping to save the patient, allegedly said she could not “nasty her skin”, as she referred to the bloodied state of the injured man. “She refused to assist, until she got a gown,” the widow recalled.

CEO of the Berbice Regional Health Authority, Dr Vishwa Mahadeo, who, along with Regional Chairman Mr. David Armogan was accompanying Prime Minister Hinds, promised to have the incident investigated once the widow can identify the doctor who had made the statement.

In seeking to rationalise the shooting, Armogan questioned the source from whence guns were proliferating the society.

By Jeune Bailey Van Keric