The State is facing a $200 Million lawsuit from the common law wife of 21-year, Linden resident Ronaldo Peters, who was shot and killed earlier this year by the police in Linden.

The incident took place back in April, triggering widespread protests. A Police Sergeant has since been charged and remanded to prison over the murder.

In court papers, the Common law wife and mother of the young man’s only child, Ashanti Benjamin is seeking damages for negligence which led to the death of Peters and is also seeking a declaration that the Right to Life guaranteed under Article 138 was violated when Sergeant Philbert Kendall, a member of the Guyana Police Force, discharged a firearm at the deceased without lawful justification.

In her application filed by Attorney Darren Wade, she said Peters was not armed, was not threatening anyone, and posed no imminent danger to life or public safety and said that the use of lethal force in these circumstances was unnecessary, excessive, and unlawful, amounting to an arbitrary deprivation of life by a state actor.

Benjamin, who informed the Court that she has a minor child with Peters, is seeking aggravated and exemplary damages and other cost the Court finds justifiable.

She also wants a declaration that the Right to Protection of the Law under Article 149 was also violated when the deceased was shot, and when he was denied prompt and adequate medical attention.

“The police officers on the scene failed to render or facilitate emergency medical care despite being aware of the severity of his injury, which contributed directly to his death. This failure reflects a broader disregard for the procedural and substantive legal protections owed to citizens, particularly when in police custody,” Benjamin prays to the Court.

The common law wife wants to Court to pronounce on the conduct of the police in the shooting of the young man, and failure by the Police to provide medical treatment.

She wants the Court to rule that such action constitutes a violation of Article 141, which guarantees the right not to be subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.

She told the Court that the treatment of Peters, both during and after the shooting, fell below the minimum standards of decency required under the Constitution and international human rights law.

The 21-year-old man, Ronaldo Peters, was at a shop with friends, when Police Sergeant Kendall jumped out of a private mini-bus and started chasing behind the youth.

Within seconds, gunshots were heard, and Kendall was later seen on surveillance video recordings, dragging the young man out of a yard and dumping his body in the private mini-bus.

Instead of taking the injured man to the hospital, the Policeman reportedly kept him in the bus as it drove around the area and eventually went to the Wismar Police station, where the youth was then placed in a Police vehicle and taken to the Mackenzie Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

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