A woman who watched her nephew die after he was shot multiple times Wednesday night is urging emergency operators to show empathy to callers in distress.
The aunt of 31-year-old Paul Dillon Sirjuesingh of Temple Street, Duncan Village, said loved ones who call for help ought not to be treated as just another crime statistic.
Shortly before midnight, her nephew was in front of the house when a brown Nissan Tiida pulled alongside him, and the occupants opened fire.
Sirjuesingh died on the road in front of his gate.
Speaking with Guardian Media yesterday at her home, Sirjuesingh’s aunt, who asked not to be named, said she heard three or four gunshots, then several other shots in rapid succession. She saw her nephew lying unresponsive by the gate.
“It was a lot of blood. He was lying face down. I could not tell where he had been shot.”
Recalling a moment when he convulsed, she said, “His first name is Paul, we call him Dillon. I said Dil, Dil his eyes were open, nothing. He was unresponsive.”
She said while she was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher, she told him that her nephew was unresponsive. “The dispatcher is asking me where he is shot. How many times he shot? I can’t say.”
She said she kept asking the dispatcher if they were sending an ambulance. “I am telling you he lying down on the ground, he outside, he bleeding out...oh God allyuh send somebody nah.” She began yelling at the dispatcher, and the call ended abruptly.
The aunt said she spoke to a second dispatcher.
The ambulance arrived about 30 to 40 minutes later, but Sirjuesingh had passed away. The grieving woman reminded emergency responders that they were dealing with human beings and should show compassion.
“You’re not just a just a number and just a phone call on the other line, You are a person. You are a person looking at somebody you love die.”
She said her nephew did “odds and ends,” including welding and masonry, and had a four-year-old daughter. Describing most of the crimes in the country as senseless, she said, “I don’t know who would have decided that were going to come here and take a life...I don’t know how they sleep when they do it.”
The woman said Sirjuesingh never mentioned that his life was in danger, nor was she aware of him being involved in any wrongdoing. While the circumstances suggest that something was awry, she said people retaliate for simple things these days, anything and nothing.
Investigators were yet to determine a motive for the killing. Officers of the Southern Division and Homicide Bureau Region 3 visited the scene.
