AMID continued calls for justice to be served in the death of their 14-year-old son, killed by a stray bullet on September 2 last, the parents of Ryan Persaud of Vive-la-Force, West Bank Demerara, are strongly refuting claims that they entered into a settlement with the suspect and asked the police to drop the matter.

Ryan Persaud, son of Heeralall and Deborah Persaud of Vive-la-Force, and student of Patentia Secondary School, was mortally wounded on September 2 when persons unknown indiscriminately discharged a hail of gunfire and a bullet then struck him in the back and was lodged in his heart. A post-mortem examination performed at the Georgetown Public Hospital mortuary determined that the lad died from a gunshot wound to his heart.
Ironically, it was the opening day of school for the Christmas term, but Ryan did not turn out on that day. When the shooting, which villagers presumed to be coming from the direction of Friendship, East Bank of Demerara started, he was at home with family members, and immediately became fearful for his life.
This instant fear was prompted since over time gunshots were regularly experienced coming from across the river, driving panic into villagers. The situation took a turn for the worse when, just two weeks earlier, in a similar discharge of gunfire, a bullet struck the Persaud’s house, causing pandemonium. The couple and their three children were all in the house at the time.
On September 2, immediately as the shooting started, Ryan turned to his parents and informed them that he was going out of the house where he would be safe, since he did not want to get hit by any stray bullet. He went across the road from his parents’ yard and saw an elder cousin and a friend catching shrimps next to a koker. He stood for a while watching them, when suddenly they heard him cry out that something had stung him on his back. Ryan called on the young men to check his back to see what was happening, but then he began bleeding and slumped to the ground.
Ironically, it turned out that just the tragedy he was trying to avoid, was what he unsuspectingly walked into. On this occasion, the bullets did not stop short at his parents’ home, but went past and struck him, out on a bridge near the main road.
On realising that Ryan had been shot, his cousin and friends sounded an alarm and the entire village turned out in front of the koker where the incident had happened. He was rushed to the West Demerara Hospital by a pastor in the neighbourhood who volunteered his services.
Relatives and neighbours were incensed at this development, since they claimed that the shooting had been going on habitually, and they had always reported the matter to the police at Wales who did nothing.
A neighbour who gave his name as Noble claimed, on this occasion, that the shooting started around 13:30 hrs and he immediately telephoned the Wales Police, informing them of the matter. He was greeted with a lackadaisical reaction, Noble claimed. His response to the police was that, “You all aint gon come till somebody dead.”
And so, when Ryan was shot, the villager immediately got back to the police and told them, “Well the boy just get kill….you all gon come now?” It was then that the police hastened to the scene, but the lad had already been transported to the West Demerara Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Following the teenager’s death, police detained a few persons for questioning, but they were released soon after.
Yesterday, Ryan’s mother, Deborah, trying to keep calm, said that even though the shooting had ceased, she was still looking to the police to find the person who was responsible for her son’s death. “I still waiting to hear from the police, but they not coming forward to say anything,” the woman said.
She recalled that it has been so traumatising for the entire family, that they never one night went back into that house to sleep. Ever since the incident, they have been lodging at her mother-in-law’s home on the same lot.
And with the help of her husband’s uncle who lives abroad, they were able to demolish the little wooden building in which they were living, and are now constructing a decent three-bedroom residential dwelling on the same spot. They are hoping to be able to move into their new home for the coming Christmas holidays.
“I only pray that the police do their work and find and deal with the person who discharged that bullet that killed my son,” the grieving mother said on the day he was killed.