Thirty-one-year-old Clement Delancey, alias Horse, of Montrose Place, South Bahamia died at 10:20 a.m. this past Saturday, at the Princess Margaret Hospital without ever having regained consciousness since being airlifted to that institution in March of this year.
According to information obtained by police at the time of the shooting, Delancey and a male relative were among a crowd of persons attending a Haitian dance in Lewis Yard on Saturday, March 25, 2006.
Officers checking out reports of gunshots being fired in that area quickly responded to the location, where they were directed to Club Grolobo.
While there officers found a black male, who was bare back and clad in a pair of blue jeans, lying face down on the ground just east of the Prince Mack Club with an apparent gunshot wound to his right temple.
Officers also discovered a .9 mm Taurus semi-automatic pistol containing one bullet lodged under his body.
Police investigations re-vealed that the victim and a relative were attending a Haitian dance at the club when he got into an argument with another patron.
Reports state that the relative went outside to a vehicle and retrieved a handgun and began firing shots into the air.
Delancey, according to eye witnesses, appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and was running up and down the street screaming obscenities before taking the gun, placing it to his head and firing a shot.
The relative, a 27-year-old resident of Lawrence Close apartments, has since been charged before the courts with possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition and also with discharging a firearm in public.
Authorities say that De-lancey’s death appears to be as the result of suicide, the case file once completed will be forwarded to Her Majesty’s Coroner for final deposition.
Incidents like this have police on Grand Bahama regularly enforcing their zero tolerance policy against illegal firearms.
According to Chief Superintendent of Police Basil Rahming, the programme, designed to significantly reduce the criminal use of firearms is an effort to make the island a safer place.
By ANGELO ARMBRISTER, Freeport News Reporter
