– during armed robbery on Main Street

NINETEEN-year-old Lloyd Hazel of Lot 86 Hill Street, Lodge, Georgetown was shot and killed yesterday afternoon on Main Street, just opposite New Thriving Restaurant.

Circumstances of the shooting are still being investigated, but according to the Police Crime Chief, investigations have revealed that the late Hazel and an accomplice were on a motorcycle when they ‘held up’, on Main

Street, a taxi transporting a Black and Decker Fixit Hardware Store employee who was on his way to a city bank to make a deposit of more than half-a-million-dollars and other valuables.
However, one of the persons who allegedly witnessed the robbery was an employee of a private security firm, who opened fire on the robbers, killing Hazel and wounding his accomplice, who escaped apprehension. Reports are that the Black and Decker bag containing the money had been recovered at the scene yesterday, together with a firearm and a motorcycle.

Police at the scene quickly cordoned off the area and hastened to take away the teen’s body along with the retrieved items in quick succession, even as witnesses to the incident refused to speak to the media but shared a photograph of the teen’s lifeless body sprawled on the roadway.

FAMILY GRIEF
The teen’s father, a deeply grieving Lloyd Hazel Snr, said his son left home at about 15:30 hrs for the Stabroek Market to purchase cigarettes for the shop they operate at home. He left home via minibus, leaving his Premio motorcar parked at home because it has a leaking oil problem.

The senior Hazel said he was manning the business when he received a telephone call saying that his son had been shot and killed.

He said he journeyed to the scene in a taxi, where he saw a pool of blood on the roadway and was told that his son had succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds in what was described as “some robbery”.

Lloyd Hazel Snr., said: “I don’t understand what happened! My son don’t thief, and I cannot believe that he is dead! And I want to know what happened!”

The dead teen’s mother, Karen Hazel, was inconsolable. She wailed that her son had asked her to prepare cook-up rice, and as she was in the process of doing so, she received a telephone call stating that he had been shot and killed.

Prostrating herself on the ground in front of their home, which houses Karen’s Pool and Beverage Shop, a food and beverage establishment, Mrs Hazel wailed, “This is what you do to me for Mother’s Day?! It’s not true! He is not dead!” She said she cannot believe that her son is dead.

The devastated woman clutched her son’s photograph last night before a gathering crowd of mostly relatives and friends, absolute shock imprinted on their faces at the fatal shooting.

Chaos erupted at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) as relatives of the slain Hazel thronged the institution, seeking answers amidst a strong police presence.

Porters escaped with the body through the back doorway to the morgue, but that did not deter the hordes of relatives, some of whom broke down and wailed openly, from entering the compound to the morgue.

They rocked the tightly locked morgue door but it did not budge, and eventually they exited the hospital compound to go to Hazel’s residence, where they dashed themselves on the roadway and wherever they could find space, wailing forlornly in deep mourning for their loved one.

The late Lloyd Hazel Jnr is survived by four sisters and two brothers, his parents and scores of relatives.

(By Michel Outridge)