Security guard stabbed to death after dispute over cellphone

Fifty-seven-year-old Shawn Lovell was fatally stabbed while on duty at the Guyana National Museum, North Road, Georgetown, on Saturday evening.
According to police, the incident occurred around 19:00h. Lovell, who resided at Lot 96 Campbellville Housing Scheme and was employed by Atlas Security Service, succumbed to multiple stab wounds after an altercation with a fellow guard.

The suspect has been identified as 38-year-old Junior Anthony Lindore, also attached to Atlas Security. Police said Lovell had completed his shift at 17:40h when Lindore relieved him. Shortly after, Lovell reportedly returned to the guard hut and accused the suspect of stealing his cell-phone.
A heated exchange reportedly followed, during which Lindore allegedly pulled two knives from a haversack. Police said Lovell was stabbed twice in the back, once in the right shoulder, and four times in the right hand. He managed to run from the guard hut but collapsed into a concrete drain east of the museum. Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) were summoned and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Crime Scene Unit (CSU) ranks recovered three knives and one cutlass inside the guard hut. The suspect was arrested at the scene, informed of the allegation, cautioned and later gave a video/audio recorded confession. Investigators also interviewed several persons as part of their probe.

A family in mourning
Speaking to Guyana Times on Sunday, Lovell’s sister, Tiffany Lovell, recounted the moment she learned of her eldest sibling’s death.
“I got a call last night, approximately like nine o’clock,” she said. “Somebody was saying something, but I couldn’t quite understand what they were saying. But then, as I listened, I thought it was some police story. But then the guy said, ‘Your brother is dead.’ I’m like, brother’s dead? Because I know that he had came home, and he went back because he said he forgot the phone in some drawer. So, he went back to get a phone and, you know, probably he – and the next thing – the guy would have stabbed him because they had an altercation”, she said
The grieving woman said the news came as a shock.
According to Tiffany, Lovell had only been employed with Atlas Security for a short time. His sister said, “He has been with them, only two weeks. This would have been the third week.” As such, she had not known the suspect.
She said too that the job was unexpected. “My brother worked at Sankar for 12 years… He would have sent in a resignation and all these things. He said he doesn’t want to stay home, he was going and look for a job. And it’s not even that he went looking for a job. He said he was on the road somewhere, and he walked into this guy, and the person introduced himself. And the person told him that he has a security firm and asked him if he’s interested. Just like that. And he said yeah.”
While the Campbellville family is in mourning after Lovell’s death, it is doubly painful, coming less than a year after their mother passed away.
“I don’t feel good at all about it,” Tiffany said. “You know, we just lost our mother. September last year. You know, we’re still recovering from that, and you know, to lose our brother now, who is the eldest one, that’s very tragic. It’s like you haven’t even recovered from one situation and there it is, into a next situation that we didn’t even ask for.”

Suspect alleged to have mental health issues
Tiffany said the family was told that the suspect had displayed troubling behaviour in the past. “From what we were told by someone at the firm, this suspect was allegedly a person with a mental health issue,” she revealed. “Because just last week, we heard he dragged an employee out of the guard hut, out of a chair….”
She stressed that private security companies must take their responsibility seriously when employing individuals who are tasked with protecting lives and property. “These security firms need to do background checks on this person,” she said. “You don’t employ somebody because you want money… What if somebody has mental issues, or they have some kind of issue at home or whatever, and because of the mental issue, they come to work, you’re giving them a firearm and all these things, what do you think they would do with it? They could snap and kill other people, and it would be unfair to people’s families. It is unfair to lose your family members to people like this. They just need to be careful and do more background checks,” she pointed out.
Tiffany described her brother as highly intelligent and sociable. “His personality, he was a man of many, many words. Very intellectual, you know, very smart,” she said.
She added that Lovell had recently used a settlement to pay for a motorcycle he expected to collect in September. “And, you know, come September, he wouldn’t even be here to even collect it,” she said quietly.
The grieving sister made it clear that the family expects accountability.
“I’d like for the police to do the investigation, and a thorough investigation, and we would like to see, you know, some kind of justice come about in this case,” she said.
“Because a senior family member just left, like any other morning, and this person returned home. It’s not that they didn’t come back home, but because, you know, of the phone incident. So, he left his phone at work. Because of the phone incident, he went back. And that’s how he lost his life.”
Police confirmed that an autopsy is expected to be performed on Wednesday.