Gunplay ends in tragedy

Story taken from our C R I M E section

A DEADLY game with a gun played by three teenagers in Couva, ended tragically when one of them was fatally shot. Cody Bourgeois, 18, of Building 37 in the National Housing Authority’s apartments along Gilda Street, was killed instantly by a bullet which was fired from a firearm and struck him in the head.

Two male teenagers — ages 18 and 19 years old — who witnessed the incident immediately rushed Bourgeois to the Couva District Health Facility where he was pronounced dead by doctors; the gun has not been recovered.

A police report stated that the teenagers reported that Bourgeois was playing with the firearm when it accidentally fired. However, police investigators who visited the scene, said that they are also working on the theory that Bourgeois may have been deliberately shot because only recently he was accused of stealing a stash of marijuana.

The two teenage friends have since been detained by detectives from the Couva Police Station.

A police report stated that about 3.30 pm on Thursday, Bourgeois was in an apartment adjoining the one he lived in.

According to the report, Bourgeois had taken the gun to the apartment.

The report stated he showed the gun to the other two teenage friends.

Police said that Bourgeois was holding the gun and, with his finger on the trigger, began to spin it. “They said he was spinning it like an actor in a western movie,” a senior police officer told Newsday.

The two teenage friends reported to police that they heard an explosion and Bourgeios slumped to the ground, bleeding from the head.

The teenagers told police that they picked up Bourgeois and placed him in a rented Nissan B-15 Sentra, then rushed him to the Couva Health Centre.

Nurses at the health institution contacted the police. Yesterday, an autopsy conducted at the Forensic Science Centre by Dr Hughvon Des Vignes, concluded that Bourgeois died from shock and haemorrhage as a result of a single gunshot wound to the head.