Burglar shot in Los Lagos home identified

The victim of Tuesday evening’s fatal shooting of an alleged burglar by a police officer has been identified. And as News Five’s Jacqueline Woods discovered, the deceased appeared to be on a collision course with trouble.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Twenty-nine year old Egbert Gordon Junior is a graduate of Gwen Lizarraga High School and the Centre for Employment Training. Over the years however, he developed problems that continued to escalate. Family members say they had tried to get Gordon professional help, but he would withdraw and lock himself inside these two dwellings situated on the family property in Lord’s Bank Village. According to his brother, Glenford Williams, Egbert not only stole from them but became an increasing danger. On September twentieth, Gordon severely chopped Williams on his upper left arm and the matter was reported to police. Williams believes that if the authorities had tried to help the family when they were first contacted over a week ago, his brother would still be alive.

Glenford Williams, Brother of Deceased
“Because of repeated attempts to get assistance fi take ah to Rockview we couldn’t and it developed into a situation where he started to steal from my parents, bruk into the house. And the Sunday night when he tear off the door, that’s when Monday my parents said mek we try do it weself. We gone ‘cross dah his house, try get ah out, ker ah dah the mental institution. He come out with the machete as usual, we had a lee grabbling on the ground, I end up getting cut and I was rushed to the hospital. I spent twenty, twenty-first, twenty-second in the hospital. In that course of time, my parents keep going to the police station to ask for assistance in capturing the boy because he ran away without him weapon, without his machete that he usually has, so we knew that it would be easier for him to be captured. So after I came back, this dah way around the Saturday from Belize, I personally went to the police station and ask them if they could look into the matter. I had a paper that I was supposed to take so they could press charges. I seh I noh want press charges because dah mi brother, but I need fi get help. We need to try find ah fi mek he get help. Nothing happen. They say they wah come, they noh come. From the time my parents went they di say the same thing. I gone back the next day then and I seh I wah press charges, this way they wah get up and start look for the man, but nothing happen then either. I gone the Sunday, they rough me up lee bit a kinda way… Not physically, they just try to beat me round, well you done say you noh wah press charges, this and that. When I get serious, well they tek a statement. I end up going, they noh do anything since. The only thing is if they had investigated from day one or look into the matter at least, it never had to escalate to him getting shot in his face. He chop me and everything, but this dah because we di try help ah, not because we want him dead.”

Following the chopping incident, the family says Gordon ran away from his residence and was likely hiding out in Los Lagos. They strongly doubt that Gordon was armed with a gun as stated by the police.

Egbert Gordon, Sr., Father of the Deceased
“Fi the past six years we took care ah him. So no way he had a gun.”

Glenford Williams
“Not to my knowledge because when he left here he left di run, he one. Unless, somebody give him a weapon outside, I have no knowledge of that, but to my knowledge he noh have no weapon. The only thing he use dah machete and that we left here.”

The family says because Gordon was missing for a week and he had the practice of barricading himself when approached, they knew he was the suspect the police had killed.

Glenford Williams
“That dah the trend, that dah what he do. When the medical persons they come he run inna the house and he lock up, he nail up inside, that dah how he do his thing. He noh want get captured, he want stay out?well he want stay inna his house. When he gone up yonder, that dah the reason I believe that dah he because when they kill ah inna the house and he lock up and he run inna another room and he lock up, dah the same trend he have, lock up himself inside the house.”

The family says the police should have exercised more patience and tried to identify the suspect before they decided to shoot. Jacqueline Woods for News Five.

Police have emphasized that they gave Gordon ample time to surrender and only reacted when he acted aggressively.