CARIFESTA being held here?

Shortly after 22:00 hours last night gunshots rang out at the junction of Drury Lane and Millington Street, sending people scurrying for cover. When it was over less than a minute later, Arjune Narine, 21, of Campbellville lay dead in his car, PGG 8089, and three people in another car sustained gunshot wounds.

The injured were identified as Jean Singh, the librarian attached to the state-owned NCN radio; her son, Mark Semple, and an individual identified as Larry.

Singh was shot in her back, Semple in his hand, and Larry in his foot and back.They were all taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital.According to an eyewitness, he and his brother-in-law, who was identified as Larry, one of three injured in the shooting, were heading home in a motorcar and were in the vicinity of Lamaha and Station Streets when they observed a set of cars, including a police car, in the roadway.

Unaware that anything was amiss, the man said that they attempted to pass the cars but were blocked by a taxi which was in their path.The man said that the taxi driver responded to their attempts to pass by asking them, “What wrong with y’all? Y’all want I loose meh dog on you?”The eyewitness added that he and his relative laughed at the comment by the taxi driver and responded that their dog was at home.

It was soon after navigating past the taxi and the police vehicle, the man said, that they were startled by sounds they recognised as gunshots. “We ain’t see where it come from or how it coming; all we know is that it came from the back of us.”

The man added that he and his brother-in-law tried to conceal themselves in their car but apparently a bullet hit the brother-in-law on one of his feet.

“Me brother-in-law shout out he get hit in his foot and I say hold on, don’t get up, because we could feel bullets flying all over we head. I seh to myself that I gon get hit too and so I say stay down Larry, and he shout out again that he get hit in he back. I say man stay down still and he tried to lie down…”

A short while after this the man said that the rain of bullets ceased at which point a policeman approached their vehicle and urged them to open their vehicle; then he cautioned them to drive as soon as he told them to.“The policeman say hold on driver open yuh back door…He jump in we car and we drive down Garnett Street where the disco deh and the police tell we to stop.”

The man said that the policeman then requested to drive the car, a call which Larry rejected.

"I am not going with you nowhere; I going to the hospital’…and the policeman say ‘alright’ and drove away with our car and went to the Kitty Police Station.” The policeman had already taken over the wheel.

The man recounted that the windows and the windscreen of the car were shattered.According to him, he has no idea what prompted the whole situation but heard that it all started when police officers pulled over a vehicle for some incident.

He said that as far as he knows the police had no idea who was the perpetrator of the shooting.According to another eyewitness, the gunmen’s car appeared to be following Narine’s vehicle along Drury Lane when they first opened fire.

The eyewitness said that apparently, Narine upon seeing the flashing lights of the police on Middleton Street decided to turn towards the cops for help.However, the eyewitness said that the gunmen did not back off.

Instead, one of the gunmen got out of their car and opened fire with what appeared to be a machine gun.“The police had to take evasive action and de man (gunman) just jump back in he car and drive away,” he said.Police recovered several spent shells near the centre of the scene while more were found along Drury Lane.