Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The rel­a­tives of a To­ba­go man shot by a po­lice­man on Mon­day evening are ques­tion­ing why he re­mains un­der po­lice guard at hos­pi­tal while the of­fi­cer in­volved is not in cus­tody.

Os­ae Mur­ray, 37, of Par­latu­vi­er, was shot fol­low­ing a con­fronta­tion with a 42-year-old po­lice­man dur­ing har­vest cel­e­bra­tions in Bloody Bay.

Rel­a­tives say con­flict had been brew­ing be­tween the men since the po­lice­man be­gan dat­ing one of Mur­ray’s for­mer com­pan­ions. Mur­ray and the woman share a child.

How­ev­er, a po­lice re­port stat­ed that the of­fi­cer was stand­ing along North­side Road, Bloody Bay, when he was ap­proached in a threat­en­ing man­ner by Mur­ray, who was al­leged­ly armed with a piece of bam­boo. Mur­ray is said to have struck the of­fi­cer on his left arm and was about to de­liv­er an­oth­er blow when the of­fi­cer, fear­ing for his life, with­drew his li­censed firearm and struck Mur­ray once in the ab­domen.

Mur­ray was ini­tial­ly tak­en to the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal and lat­er trans­ferred to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he re­mains ward­ed in sta­ble con­di­tion.

Rel­a­tives said the gun­shot wound caused sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­nal dam­age, in­clud­ing the loss of one kid­ney.

Mur­ray’s sib­ling, Ricky Guy, spoke to Guardian Me­dia af­ter vis­it­ing him at the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.

“Right now, my broth­er com­ing along. His right side kid­ney still dam­aged. His left-side kid­ney bruised. His lungs punc­tured.

“I leave my aun­tie in­side there, but he fast asleep. He ain’t talk­ing too much, just say a few words then fall asleep.”

Guy said the fam­i­ly is con­cerned about Mur­ray re­main­ing un­der po­lice watch with­out clar­i­ty on the rea­sons.

“He still un­der po­lice watch, but we want to know what he un­der po­lice watch for. That is the next thing. None of the po­lice not giv­ing we any in­for­ma­tion about it.”

He sug­gest­ed the po­lice may be await­ing Mur­ray’s re­cov­ery be­fore lay­ing any charges.

Guy al­so said a Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) in­ves­ti­ga­tor vis­it­ed Bloody Bay yes­ter­day morn­ing and in­ter­viewed sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als.

He claimed there are con­flict­ing ac­counts of the in­ci­dent from wit­ness­es.

He ex­pressed con­fi­dence that jus­tice would pre­vail with the PCA now in­volved in the mat­ter.

An­oth­er sib­ling, Ri­on Woods, who trans­port­ed Mur­ray to the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal af­ter the shoot­ing, was al­so at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.

Woods was ex­pect­ed to give a state­ment to po­lice yes­ter­day evening.

He said he was in Cas­tara check­ing his boat when he re­ceived news that his broth­er had been shot. On ar­riv­ing at the scene, he saw Mur­ray ly­ing mo­tion­less on the ground sur­round­ed by on­look­ers.

Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.