The life of 53-year-old businessman, Leonard Small, was irreversibly altered after his left arm was amputated following a massacre [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] that claimed three lives and left him and six others seriously injured on the night of May 5 last year.
The bloodbath took place at the corner of James and La Penitence streets, Albouystown where Small's business premises/home is located, and was executed by a lone gunman.
Stabroek News recently spoke with Small about that fateful night when doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) were forced to remove his badly mangled arm during emergency surgery.
As soon as mention was made of the night Small's life was changed forever, his features contorted in a mixture of pain and anger and at first, the maimed businessman refused to talk about what happened.
However, the owner of L. Small Grocery and Variety Shop calmed down sufficiently to recall that around 8 pm on May 5, 2003, a man armed with a machine gun had approached the shop from James Street and sprayed at least seven bullets into a man called `Blackout', who was standing outside.
At the time, Small said, he had been seated in front of his shop chatting with two of his friends, a habit he had cultivated over the years since opening his business.
In the fatal assault on `Blackout', 25, whose real name was Richard Bobb and who it appears had been the intended target, 28-year-old Anil Baijnauth, who had been standing in the shop, was killed.
"Nobody don't move!" This directive had been uttered by the gunman as he had fired into the air before he swung his weapon in the direction of Small and his friends, all of whom had been momentarily paralyzed by a combination of fear and shock.
But as the gunman's next move became clear, Small recounted, his friends had attempted to run. One of them, Jerry Eustace Bobb, aged 59 and a father of eight, was shot in his back and other parts of his body. Bobb, also known as `Logie', died while being taken to the GPH a short while later.
"When they [Bobb and the other man] get hit, I try to run but I get shoot close to my right groin and on my left hand," Small explained, pointing to the stump that remains.
Bobb told this newspaper that he had been hospitalised for one month after losing his arm and after his discharge, he had handed over the management of his business to one of his two daughters.
"I'm grateful for life...but [the handicap inhibits] me from doing certain things the way I used to do them before," Small revealed, adding that doctors had removed the arm to save his life because it had been badly lacerated and he is diabetic.
He said despite the time which has elapsed since the incident occurred, he and his family are still grappling with various adjustments that have had to be made as a result.
Information gathered by some of Small's overseas-based relatives had indicated that a prosthetic arm is likely to cost about US$5,000, Small disclosed.
He said his efforts to get public assistance from the medical board has been unsuccessful as they had determined after two meetings that he is not an 'invalid' and therefore cannot qualify for assistance.
Small, who also has a son, related that his wife who lives in the United States and had been there at the time of the incident, is fearful of returning to Guyana after learning of his brush with death and other incidents of crime in the country.
"Sometimes I think about what happen[ed] to me and I get some real bad headaches but life goes on."
For a long time after the incident had occurred, many of Small's regular patrons had been afraid to visit the shop and business had slowed. But with the passage of time, some degree of normality has been restored.
"I have to close the shop everyday at 8 o'clock... before I used to shut up around 10 o'clock. My family want me to migrate [to the US] but I like Guyana."
Eyewitnesses at the scene that night had recalled that other men who had stood guard during the carnage had accompanied the gunman. The gunman and his accomplices, according to their recollection, had then departed the scene in two cars parked near the Star cinema and farther east along James Street, respectively.
Later, a man named Mark Phillips and known as `Big Batty', for whom the police had issued a wanted bulletin was reported to have been the gunman responsible for the deadly attack.
Among the injured victims had been seven-year-old Quacy Tappin who had been shot in the left ankle, and eyewitnesses had further related that bodies lay all over the street after the shooting.
Earlier that night, reports had said there was a shooting in Laing Avenue and residents from that area and in Walker Terrace had told Stabroek News that around 7:40 pm, two men had run through the avenue ordering people to get inside. Some persons had not heeded the warning and the men had fired shots in the air. A few hours after the incident at Small's shop, three men on foot had approached a group of men at the corner of James and Calender streets and started shooting, injuring one of the men, Paul Harper, before leaving the scene in a car that had been parked at Sussex Street. Harper had been admitted to the GPH.
On May 15 last year, Phillips was fatally shot during a joint army/police operation after he and another man called `Chinee', who was also killed, opened fire on the patrol mortally wounding Guyana Defence Force Lance Corporal Shemton Dodson in the process.
A Police Public Relations press release issued afterward said Phillips had been wanted in connection with a series of murders committed on policemen and civilians.