— accomplice surrenders
THIRTY-two-year-old Randy Morris of Lot 263 Freeman Street, East La Penitence, Georgetown was shot dead by police yesterday after he and an accomplice had attempted to rob a Bourda Market meat vendor and had led dozens of police ranks — on motorcycles and in vehicles — through several city streets in a high-speed chase. Accused of murder and several armed robberies, Morris was shot on Peter Rose Street, between Church and Forshaw Streets, Queenstown. The name of his accomplice was given as Moore.
An eyewitness who spoke with the Guyana Chronicle yesterday on Church Street explained that he was driving out with his family east along Church Street when a car heading in the opposite direction with two persons inside hit his vehicle. As he attempted to address the issue, one of the men raised a firearm at him.
The man said he saw one of the men abandoning the moving car before it collided with an attorney’s car. After the first person had exited the vehicle, the other man, who by then had noticed the police hot on their trail, exited the car and put his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
His partner then dashed for freedom, scaling several fences and drains in the Queenstown area before running into the arms of the police, the eyewitness recounted.
The man said that a police officer informed him that police had been chasing the two men for about 10 minutes through several city streets.
The Guyana Chronicle was informed that the police were able to recover a firearm and spent shells from an alleyway used by the dead man as he attempted to flee.
Coming face to face with the police, Randy Morris was heard crying and hollering for someone to save him, contending that the police wanted to kill him. As the police tried to put Morris into a police vehicle, he wrestled them to the ground and kept holding on to one of the lawmen, pulling him into a drain and bracing him against a fence in the area.
Morris kept asking the police not to shoot him because he has his children to live for. It was his continued physical assault on the police as they attempted to arrest him, coupled with his refusal to release the rank he was holding on to, that saw him being shot as he pulled a policeman into a drain. That action caused the other ranks to come to the aid of their colleague, firing several shots into the drain.
Upon checking the getaway car, a Toyota Raum, it was noticed that while the vehicle bore number plate PPP 962, there was nothing on the registration affixed to the windscreen to indicate the number plate was genuine. In fact, the Chronicle noticed that the registration on the windscreen was a blank registration, bearing no information and appearing to have been  photocopied.
An attorney from the law office of a popular lawyer said she was heading east along Church Street when she noticed the car coming in her direction, and that a man exited the vehicle while it was still moving. Thereafter, the car careened into hers, she panicked, and when she looked over in the other vehicle, she noticed blood in the car.
The Guyana Chronicle was informed that the men had attempted to rob a vendor in the Bourda Market, and were making their escape bid when they were spotted and chased by the police.
Contacted last evening, the vendor, Kishore, was reluctant to speak to the media on the issue.

Scathing attack
At the hospital, relatives of the dead man launched a scathing attack on the media, accusing the media of putting in the papers things about Randy that were not factual. They said that Morris had been accused of all sorts of things without the media investigating the accusations.
The police were not spared verbal chastisement, as an aunt of the dead man carried on about the God she serves, and that the family was going to have their turn of glory. The aunt said that her nephew was “not a bad person”, and that the police were out to get him. She cautioned the ranks that the tears of the man’s children would rest on their shoulders.
The commotion at the hospital delayed the doctors from taking the man’s body from the accident and emergency room to the morgue across the street by nearly an hour. Ranks at the hospital had to radio for a patrol to assist in transporting the remains to the morgue, but after that team arrived, it was realised that the crowd was too much and radioed for back-up, which saw two jeeploads of police entering the GPHC compound. This naturally angered the relatives of the man even more.
Over the last three years, Randy Morris had caused the police and many persons much heartache. He had been fingered in several armed robberies and other crimes, including murder. Morris had been placed before the courts more than 29 times, but had never been convicted for any of the offences for which he had been accused.
Morris and his family members had often accused the police of harassing him and accusing him of crimes in which he had no involvement. Following his death yesterday afternoon, his aunt was still of the opinion that her nephew had been a good man whom police had targeted without reason.