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Jun 01, 2014 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery
By Michael Jordan
If indeed he had a secret and violent life, then he hid it very well and he fooled everyone. Those who believe that he lived some sort of Jekyll and Hyde existence would say that he had it coming to him. Those who believe that he was an innocent, hardworking man suggest that he had unknowingly picked the wrong kind of friends to be with on that night, a little over a year ago.
Nineteen-year-old Jamal Harris lived in Joseph Pollydore Street, Lodge, and worked in the maintenance department of a large city firm.
At around 2.00 a.m. on Monday, March 8, 2013, Harris picked up his fiancée, Tandika Hinckson, from her mother’s home in Tucville in a Toyota Raum that he had rented for $5,000 the previous day.
He then dropped her off in Joseph Pollydore Street, Lodge.
Shortly after, the fiancée received a phone call: someone had stabbed Harris and he was at the Georgetown Hospital.
Tandika Hinckson and Harris’s mother, Yvonne Smith, rushed to the hospital. They were not allowed to enter the Emergency Unit, but hospital staff reassured Mrs. Smith that they were “working on” her son.
Eventually, a nurse emerged from the Emergency Unit and informed them that a doctor wanted to see them. The doctor told the two women that Harris had lost too much blood and they were unable to save him.
The story they were told was that Harris was on the seawall when he got into an altercation with a group of men who stabbed him to the chest and abdomen.
A friend, who was with Harris, took the bleeding youth to the Georgetown Public Hospital in the Toyota Raum that they had rented. The unidentified friend then hurriedly left the hospital, leaving the rented vehicle in the compound.
Now the man who had stabbed Jamal Harris was a deportee, and when detectives took him to the Kitty Police Station, he had a strange story to tell.
According to the deportee, Harris and another youth were attempting to rob a vendor in the vicinity of the Sheriff Street and East Coast Demerara Highway junction when the deportee intervened. The man allegedly said that he inflicted the fatal wounds while struggling with Harris, who was armed. The vendor who was allegedly attacked corroborated the story.
By this time, police had impounded the black Toyota Raum that Harris had rented and which his unidentified friend had left at the hospital. They also detained two individuals who owned the vehicle. A friend of the slain man was also taken into custody.
Harris’s mother and fiancée reacted to the deportee’s story with tears, anger and disbelief.
“If they say that my son fight, I would believe that, but thieving, I would never believe that. I would never believe that at all,” his mother said.
His fiancée, Tandika Hinckson, pointed out that Harris had a “well-paying job” and had no reason to turn to crime.
So who was telling the truth?To find out, I took a night trip to the seawall. Someone eventually pointed out the ‘victims’ of the robbery attempt: a woman who was selling beverages with her son and daughter.Known as “the burger queen,” the vendor had a number of other stalls on the seawall and had been vending there for about five years. She had lived for some time in Venezuela and her children have both Guyanese and Venezuelan citizenship.She said that on Sunday, March 7, her son, and a 45-year-old deportee and drug addict who assists them, were at one of her stalls and had remained there until dawn. She was later told that during the early hours of Monday, March 8, her son and the deportee saw two men walking from a westerly direction towards them.She said that her son became uneasy and suggested to the deportee that they should pack up. But then one of the youths allegedly walked up to her son and said “Give me all you got.”According to what she was told, the robber tried to draw a handgun from his waist, but the gun got snagged in his pants.It is alleged that the vendor’s son immediately grabbed the gunman and threw him to the ground. The robber’s accomplice reportedly then struck the young vendor behind the head with a bottle, picked up the firearm which had fallen, and fled in the same direction from which the robbers had approached.The vendor’s son reportedly was scuffling with the first attacker when the deportee intervened and stabbed the robber. It is alleged that the wounded man, later identified as Jamal Harris, fled behind his accomplice. The victims reportedly then saw a black vehicle heading towards the fleeing men. It is claimed that the driver then stopped and the two robbers entered the vehicle, which drove off.The vendor said that her son, who was bleeding from his head injury, caught a taxi and headed home. According to the woman, she later accompanied her son to the Georgetown Public Hospital and when they arrived there, they saw the same black vehicle, with lights on, in the compound.According to the vendor, a hospital staffer asked her son if he was at the hospital in connection with the vehicle’s occupant, and her son explained that the occupant of the vehicle had robbed him.They were reportedly then told that the person who had brought the wounded man to the hospital had fled the scene.She said that instead of allowing her injured son to be treated, police ranks took him to the Kitty Police Station. The family was reportedly then told to locate the individual who had fatally stabbed Jamal Harris. They eventually located the deportee and he willingly accompanied them to the Kitty Police Station, where he was detained. The vendor’s daughter alleged that Harris and three other youths had purchased from their stall a few days before his death. But Harris’s mother would come up with a third story that appeared to exonerate her son.
Determined to uncover the truth about his death, Yvonne Smith said that she went to the Kitty seawall area where the killing had occurred.
There, she reportedly spoke to a female vendor who claimed that she had witnessed the altercation.
According to Ms. Smith, the vendor said she saw two men running on the seawall on the day that Jamal Harris was slain.
One of the men was reportedly speaking on a mobile phone.
Ms. Smith claimed that she was told that shortly after, the occupant of a black vehicle drove up, and her son exited the vehicle. The vendor allegedly heard Harris shout to the two running men: “Why y’all running and y’all call me?”
It is alleged that another vendor and others then confronted Harris, while remarking “you is the person that they call to come fuh dem? Okay, we will deal with you.”
Ms. Smith said that she was told that the men and her son began to scuffle, but the men held his hands while another man broke a bottle and stabbed him.
This information seemed to suggest that Jamal Harris was killed when he unwittingly went to the seawalls in the vehicle to pick up some friends who were committing a robbery there.
But police appear to think that Jamal Harris was a blue-collar worker by day, while moonlighting as a thief at night. They gathered information which suggested that the Toyota Raum which he had rented was used in several robberies along the seawall.
At the time of the investigation, police said that a young woman alleged that she and her boyfriend were in a car near the seawall, the month before Harris was killed when two young men who were armed with knives attacked them.
The female victim is said to have told police that the robbers relieved her of a BlackBerry phone and the vehicle keys. It is alleged that a black Toyota Raum, with the same licence number as the one that Harris rented, then drove to the scene and picked up the robbers.
The owner of the vehicle also told me that Jamal Harris had rented the vehicle the same day that this robbery occurred.
Police eventually released the deportee who had inflicted the fatal stab wounds on Jamal Harris. He was never charged.
If you have any information on any unusual case, please contact us at our Lot 24, Saffon Street, Charlestown address. You can also contact us on telephone numbers 22-58465 and 22-58458. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at [email protected].
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