While playing a game of football in the Georgetown ward of Albouystown on Sunday morning, 18-year-old Christopher Mansfield, called “Gully Bop,” of Lot 66 Barr Street, Albouystown, Georgetown, was reportedly chopped, stabbed and shot by three youths on bicycles who attacked him.
Natasha Mansfield
According to the dead teen’s mother, Natasha Mansfield, her son had left home very early Sunday morning to play football, something he often does.
“At 6 something, a guy came to me with a bicycle and say something happen to my son. I went with him. When I went to the corner of Cooper Street, I saw my friend running out of her yard with a sheet. I told the bicycle man to stop, and (I) ran behind her; and when I ran behind her, I see my son lying down flat with sheets, stab up holes, and a car was there and the car take me to the hospital,” the grieving mother said.
The visibly distraught woman explained that she is still in a state of shock, and is trying to come to grips with the fact that her eldest child is now dead.
“My son tried telling me something, but I just can’t hear what he got to say…he just died. And I am asking the Guyana Police Force (to) let them look to the crime rate whereby these youths in Albouystown are with guns! Underage children with guns! I asking them to put something in place in Albouystown!
“My son is gone, and I don’t have nobody that could pay me back for him. He is never a child that had gun, cutlass; fight nobody, stab nobody. No! And I am just asking them: I need justice for my son! Justice!” she told Guyana Times.
The woman noted that her son had been a jovial individual. She admitted that he had previously been charged for marijuana possession, but she said those charges were dismissed for lack of evidence.
“He would trouble people and got them cussing. The people would come and complain to me. I would come out and say, ‘Man, is elderly people; have respect.’ Who know, they could talk. I never give people a bad face when they come and tell me about my son. But he was a nice child to me.”
Christopher Mansfield leaves to mourn his mother, his two younger sisters and two younger brothers.
According to the Police, three “identifiable males” were involved in the incident.
According to Police, armed respectively with a cutlass, a knife and a gun, the suspects approached the victim on bicycles, and then proceeded to attack him. During the altercation, the suspect who was armed with the gun shot the teen to the right side of his abdomen, and the injured youth barely managed to seek refuge in a nearby yard before he collapsed.
Mansfield was taken to Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC), where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His body is at the GPHC mortuary awaiting a Post Mortem Examination. Four persons are in Police custody assisting with the investigation. (Kristen Macklingam)
