Wanted man ‘John Kirby' shot dead

 

The freedom of wanted man ‘John Kirby' was halted last night when he was shot dead by ranks of a police mobile patrol in Agricola last night.

Kirby, whose right name is Kirby Anthony Heywood, 25, received multiple gunshot wounds to his body while he was trying to ride away from the patrol on a Motor Chappy at about 19:30hrs.

Police said that they recovered a sawn-off shotgun and several cartridges from the dead man, whom they say had fired on them while in the company of two other men, who managed to escape.

However, relatives of the dead man said Heywood was cold-bloodedly shot while he was surrendering to the police.

A 12-year-old boy, Derwin Young, of Fourth Street, Agricola, was also wounded when police fired indiscriminately to disperse a crowd which had gathered after ‘John Kirby' was killed.

The police said that they had responded to a report of robbery in the Agricola area.

A source said that as the ranks turned into the village, persons from within a crowd at the head of the street began firing at them, hitting their vehicle.

Two of the men were seen running away. They disappeared into a clump of bushes.

But Heywood was not so lucky. He jumped upon a Motor Chappy and rode east further into Agricola, where he was brought down by a hail of bullets.

Police say he was picked up and taken to the Georgetown Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The police also said that Heywood was found with the shotgun strapped to his back.

However, relatives said that after Heywood was shot, he tried to surrender to the police, but several more bullets were pumped into his body.

“We know he de wanted, yes, but he surrender and still dey shoot he. Dey could'a carry he in,” an irate relative stated.

The relative also claimed that after shooting Heywood, the ranks stopped with his body at the Ruimveldt Police Station, where several ranks crowded around a vehicle to get a glimpse of the notorious man who had been eluding them for several months.

The dead man's mother told this newspaper, at the hospital last night, that she had already left for work when she got word that her son had been shot.

She immediately went to the hospital, where she confirmed that he had died.

A senior police officer told this newspaper that since the family knew that they would have been hurt by his killing, they should have turned him in.

“If they were so close, why didn't they hand him over?” the officer asked.

Heywood was one of several Agricola gang members who are wanted in connection with a series of robberies and murder, including the brutal assassination of former Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh, his brother and sister, along with his security guard, in April this year.

He was also fingered in the killing of five Kaieteur News staff in early August.

Meanwhile, 12-year-old Derwin Young, a student of the Carmel Community High School, is in a stable condition at the Georgetown Hospital, where he is being treated to remove nine pellets from his body.

Eyewitnesses said that Young was standing on his bridge, about 100 yards from where Heywood was shot, when the police opened fire.

“He deh standing pon he bridge and den de police start fuh chase everybody and start shooting,” one eyewitness stated.

Another Agricola resident said that he heard Young, who was being aided by another young man, screaming for his mother.

“I see dem running coming and he hollering ‘mammy ah get shoot'. I snatch he and run past de police and I see a man with a bike and we ride with he to de hospital,” the resident said.

The wounded youth's mother, Onika, said that she, too, had heard the shooting, and was concealing herself when she heard her son screaming.

Kirby Heywood is the latest in a number of high profile criminal suspects to be captured or shot dead within recent months.

Sunday 10-22-2006