Some two months after 45-year-old Peter Headley, a taxi driver of Dowding Street, Kitty, Georgetown, was fatally shot by Police while in custody, the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) is currently reviewing the case report.
This is after the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) had completed its investigation into the shooting, according to Commissioner of Police Nigel Hoppie.
“The OPR, the department that was tasked with initiating the investigation [into the Police shooting], would have completed their work and made submission to the Chairman of the Police Complaints Authority, who is designated to review the work. And as we speak, he is currently reviewing the report,” the Top Cop told media operatives on the side lines of a wreath-laying ceremony held on Sunday morning for Police ranks who were killed while on duty.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Hoppie noted that the two Police officers involved in the shooting are on open arrest.
Headley was shot and killed on May 15, 2021, at Nandy Park, East Bank Demerara, after he and another man were arrested by Police.
Police had said in a release that at about 20:45h, ranks intercepted a motor car with Headley and the other man. Headley was at the time, the driver of the vehicle.
However, a search was conducted in the vehicle during which a television set suspected to have been stolen during an armed robbery at Herstelling, EBD, on May 11, 2021, was found. As such, the two men were arrested.
It was reported that Headley was placed in the front passenger seat of the civilian vehicle which was being driven by a Policeman along with another armed Police rank in the back seat.
The other suspect was placed in the Police vehicle with the other ranks.
But on their way to the Providence Police Station, Headley allegedly reached under the seat and pulled out an object, which the Police said “appeared to be a firearm.”
Upon seeing this, the armed rank who was sitting at the back seat discharged a round, hitting Headley to his body.
He was taken to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre where he succumbed to his injuries while receiving treatment. A post-mortem examination had revealed that Headley died of a single gunshot wound that perforated his lungs.
The two ranks who were in the vehicle at the time of the shooting were initially placed on close arrest as the matter was reported to the OPR for an investigation to be launched.
However about one week after his death, Headley’s relatives picketed the Home Affairs Ministry calling for justice. The family is contending that the man was not a bandit.
Nevertheless, Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn had met with them and assured that the matter will be thoroughly probed by the OPR and the Police Complaints Authority.
