Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of the La Hor­quet­ta com­mu­ni­ty are shak­en af­ter a man, be­lieved to be a ban­dit, was fa­tal­ly shot with his own gun dur­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery at a mi­ni-mart on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice said work­ers at the Sil­ver­Fox Mi­ni Mart on Prophe­cy Av­enue, off Tumpuna Road, were con­front­ed by Richard McK­ie, who de­mand­ed cash. McK­ie, who was armed with a gun, stole cash and valu­ables from one work­er but strug­gled with an­oth­er.

McK­ie, 45, was shot dur­ing the scuf­fle and ran out of the busi­ness place, col­laps­ing on the street out­side.

Of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force were called in and took McK­ie to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he was de­clared dead short­ly af­ter.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood yes­ter­day and spoke with near­by ven­dors who said they heard the gun­shot and were fear­ful giv­en the ran­dom na­ture of crime.

One man who op­er­ates a stall op­po­site the busi­ness place re­called see­ing McK­ie stum­ble out of the mi­ni-mart as the vis­i­bly trau­ma­tised work­ers be­gan to pan­ic. “I saw one of the young boys who was work­ing in the place say, ‘You try to rob me, boy. You put a gun to my head’. When I heard that, I tell them to call the po­lice one time.

“The ban­dit on the ground said, ‘Okay, take the bag’. I nev­er saw that per­son (McK­ie) around here be­fore.”

As of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, nei­ther the work­er who fought with the ban­dit nor the gun be­lieved to have been used by McK­ie dur­ing the rob­bery had been found.

One busi­ness­man said he knew the work­er as a “good-na­tured per­son” with no crim­i­nal record, ex­plain­ing that he was sim­ply shocked by the ex­pe­ri­ence and fright­ened for his own safe­ty.

“The man was shak­ing like a leaf. He left and came back, stand up and wait­ing for the po­lice be­cause passers-by was say­ing the po­lice was com­ing just now, but I feel he is to­tal­ly out of it.”

The ven­dor stat­ed that while La Hor­quet­ta is of­ten re­gard­ed as a crime “hotspot,” Prophe­cy Av­enue is a bustling area that is gen­er­al­ly peace­ful and calm.

He lament­ed that the own­ers of the busi­ness of­ten of­fered dis­counts and free items to cus­tomers in need and sym­pa­thised with them fol­low­ing the at­tack.

“This is not right; it’s a re­al op­pres­sion to peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly these busi­ness­peo­ple be­cause they wake up ear­ly in the morn­ing and try to help the peo­ple.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said po­lice from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion II would be as­sist­ing of­fi­cers from the La Hor­quet­ta CID on the mat­ter.