CID Constable gunned down in Main Street restaurant
By Kim Lucas
Stabroek News
January 3, 2003
A young police constable was gunned down on Wednesday night as he walked into the Arapaima Restaurant at Main and Quamina Streets.
Constable 15885 Mark Latour, of the Criminal Inves-tigation Department (CID), Eve Leary, was pronounced dead at 8:20 pm on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
A release from the force's Public Relations Department said that "as the 29-year-old Latour entered the eating place, someone from inside the restaurant suddenly whipped out a pistol and discharged six rounds at the cop. The gunman then fled the scene.
"The policeman then collapsed to the ground and was picked up by a security guard, who rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. He received gunshot wounds to the left jaw, left chest and left inner thigh," the release stated.
The police said six 9 mm spent shells and two bullets were found at the scene.
Unconfirmed reports state that the young policeman, who hailed from Lot 28 Nicolay Street, New Amster-dam was accompanied to the restaurant by a woman, who later fled the scene into the `Tiger Bay' area.
Just five minutes prior to his death, Latour's mother, Annie Sutherland had called him on his cellular phone.
"He said he was going home now...By the time mummy go inside and light the coil, [the] phone ring and a cousin said Mark just get shoot," Latour's younger sister, Vanessa Amsterdam told Stabroek News yesterday. The cop was the third of four children for his parents.
Relatives said that Latour, who joined the Guyana Police Force on September 11, 1992, was never afraid for his life despite the killing of more than a dozen members of the force last year.
His sister recalled: "When I say, `Mark, lef the work. Look how them police getting shoot.' He used to tell say, `No meh sister. They ain't go trouble me. Me don't do them nothing'."
Latour's murder has brought to 13 the number of policemen killed since the crime wave escalated in the country last year. Since the February 23 escape of five men from the Camp Street jail, there have been more than 100 murders and in excess of 200 violent robberies throughout the country.
Three of the escapees - Andrew Douglas, Dale Moore and Mark Fraser - were subsequently killed in separate shooting incidents. The other two - Troy Dick and Shawn Brown - are still at large.
However, during last year, the deliberate killing of policemen started with the shooting death of Police Superintendent Leon Fraser at the beginning of April, followed some days later by the murder of Detective Harry Kooseram. Kooseram was killed on his way to work at the Vigilance Police Station, East Coast Demerara.
Some of the other cops killed were: Detective Adrian London, who was gunned down on Joseph Pollydore Street, Lodge while on his way home from work one night; Chief Inspector Ley-land October shot to death in Albouystown, minutes after purchasing ice cream for his granddaughter; Constable Rawle Thomas, shot while chasing bandits in the mining town of Linden; Police Con-stable 16840 Colin Robert-son, who was riddled with bullets on the `C' Field Road in South Sophia, a short distance from his home; and traffic constable Quincy James, who was brutally gunned down on December 3, when a large gang of gunmen ran amok on Regent Street while robbing Gobind's Cambio.
