WHEN police in Cayenne have completed their investigations into last Thursday’s shooting death of 46-year-old shrimp vendor Kennard Mc Kinnon, his body will be handed over to relatives for interment. Relatives last night said that they are trying to obtain visas to enter the French country, so as to identify the body of their loved one, and be in a position to arrange for his burial.
“At this point in time, we are unable to say anything about his burial, since the body has not yet been handed over, and French police are continuing their investigations,” his distraught brother, Tony told this newspaper.
He added that it would cost upward of $1M to transport the body home, and they are unable to determine the way forward until such time as they ‘get on the ground’ in French Guiana and acquire authentic information. “It’s no use speculating,” Tony said.
Kennard Mc Kinnon, son of Reginald and Marie Mc Kinnon of Golden Grove, East Coast Demerara, was shot in the head after he attempted to part a fight between two Guyanese colleagues at Pedec, a shrimping industry in Cayenne where shrimp mongers would ply their trade.
According to Tony, shortly before 17:00hrs last Thursday, the family received a phone call informing them that Kennard had been shot in the head after he assumed a peace-making role in a fight between two other men known to him.  The men had shared one home in French Guiana.
Though unable to say what prompted the misunderstanding and subsequent fight, Tony said his information is that after his brother parted the two men, the aggressor — whose name was given as ‘Taliban’ — left the scene of the misunderstanding, but returned later, armed with a shotgun, and opened fire, hitting Kennard with a single bullet which remained stuck in his brain.
The man with whom the aggressor had the fight — Steve Andersen of Nabaclis, East Coast Demerara — was reportedly shot in the face. Both wounded men were rushed to a hospital in Cayenne (French Guiana), where they were admitted.
Mc Kinnon succumbed the following day at about 09:30 hrs, despite doctors’ desperate efforts to save his life. Anderson remains warded in critical condition at the hospital in Cayenne.
Information coming out of French Guiana confirmed that the suspect in the shooting death has been taken into police custody.
Meanwhile, relatives have expressed outrage over reports carried in a section of the electronic media stating that Kennard had been shot and killed in a drug-related incident.  They said the media house had approached them for information on the shooting, and what they told them was what they had told the other media houses.
“We do not know where the media house got their information from, but we consider this very irresponsible, and are calling on them to retract the information disseminated,” the dead man’s relatives said.