Kingstown Park Man loses eye in chopping incident

One man is thanking his lucky stars, while his sister is appealing for justice after he sustained cutlass chops to his head and face, resulting in him losing an eye.{{more}}

Michael Pierre, commonly known as ‘Tuff’, of Kingstown Park, was attacked last Friday night at about 10pm, at a shop in the area, while taking in a domino competition.

Pierre, said to be in his late thirties, sustained a chop to the back of his head, one at the top of his head and face, and another to the side of his face.

His left eye had to be removed during surgery on Monday, and Pierre received numerous stitches to close the wounds.

When SEARCHLIGHT visited Pierre at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, Pierre’s sister Cheryl related what her sibling said had occurred on the fateful Friday night.

According to Pierre, her brother was having an argument with another patron at the shop when the patron’s brother came to the area.

Words were exchanged between the two brothers, after which the assailant left the vicinity.

As the two men continued their war of words, the assailant returned with a cutlass and delivered the blows to her brother.

“He say when he get the lash, he turn ‘round and see [the assailant’s] face and from that he don’t remember anything.”

Pierre indicated that as far as she was aware, her brother had never had any altercations with either of the men.

She said that Michael and the other patron were known to have had verbal spars at times, but at the end of the day, they would end all arguments the way they usually started; over a drink of rum.

Pierre is described as a boisterous individual, who, though loud at times, was harmless and not considered by his sister a violent person.

His sister is calling for persons who witnessed the altercation to come forward to give details of what occurred so that her brother can receive his justice in court.

“My brother lose his eye and it will take a while before things get back to normal for him. I want justice to be done, so I want all who was there to be honest and talk the truth.”

“Old people say the upholder is worse than the thief. Everybody who was involved should be punished.” Pierre added.

On Monday, August 18, Swarnie Nichols was charged with the unlawful and malicious wounding of Pierre. He was remanded in police custody until November 11th.(JJ)