Mo­ments af­ter shop­pers and vis­i­tors to Long Cir­cu­lar Mall, St James, rushed to safe­ty, af­ter gun­shots rang out around mid­day dur­ing an al­leged con­fronta­tion be­tween se­cu­ri­ty guards and an armed ban­dit, the dead man’s wife ar­rived at the scene and broke down in tears as she watched his body on the ground.

The woman’s wails filled the air, as mo­torists wound down their win­dows as they drove past, and cu­ri­ous spec­ta­tors gath­ered on the top-most lev­el of the car park to catch a glimpse of what was un­fold­ing.

The dead man was lat­er iden­ti­fied as Leke­mus Mur­phy, 34.

On­look­ers praised the se­cu­ri­ty guards for their quick re­sponse and ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty, af­ter learn­ing how the in­ci­dent re­port­ed­ly un­fold­ed.

Re­ports in­di­cate that the SWAT se­cu­ri­ty guards were over­see­ing to a cash de­liv­ery at the mall around 12.55 pm, when they heard a woman scream­ing for help from the east­ern side of the com­pound and rushed to her aid.

Re­ports said Mur­phy was seen re­liev­ing the vic­tim of her white Nis­san Ti­i­da at gun­point near the ex­it lead­ing to Long Cir­cu­lar Road, op­po­site the TTPS Mount­ed Branch.

Guardian Me­dia was told that up­on con­fronting him, the guards in­struct­ed him to drop the firearm, but he al­leged­ly fired at them and they re­turned fire, hit­ting him sev­er­al times.

Mur­phy ran a few steps af­ter be­ing hit and col­lapsed, where he died.

One of the se­cu­ri­ty guards was al­so re­port­ed­ly in­jured dur­ing the in­ci­dent. He was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, where he was treat­ed and ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion last night.

Mur­phy’s griev­ing rel­a­tives said he op­er­at­ed a mi­ni-mart out of his home in Laven­tille.

How­ev­er, one of the women present yes­ter­day de­nied the po­lice ver­sion of the events.

Of­fi­cers at the scene con­firmed that Mur­phy was known to them and had re­cent­ly been re­leased from prison.