Floyd Green pressed on 2013 Barbican shooting evidence in police murder trial

Agriculture Minister Floyd Green was back under detailed cross-examination on Tuesday in the Home Circuit Court, where attorney-at-law Hugh Wildman questioned him again in the murder trial of six policemen. Wildman pressed Green to explain, in precise terms, what he said he remembered about the January 12, 2013 shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Mark Allen and Ucliffe Dyer.

Lee, Allen and Dyer were travelling in a blue Mitsubishi Outlander when they were killed by police on Acadia Drive, near the junction with Evan’s Avenue in Barbican, St Andrew. The police account has described the incident as an alleged shootout. Two illegal guns were reportedly taken from the scene by cops, while a fourth man was said to have got away.

Green is one of two alleged witnesses who say they saw parts of the confrontation involving the policemen and the three men who are now dead. He was the first witness called when the case opened in January. After completing his evidence at that stage, he was told there was a strong chance he would have to return to court.

He was brought back on Friday, when crime scene photographs were displayed for him and the seven-member jury. Green was asked to identify places in the images that matched what he said he saw, including points where certain events allegedly occurred during the shooting and where the men fell after being shot.

In his January testimony, Green said that from the bedroom window of the apartment complex where he lived in 2013, he saw a Toyota Corolla, described as a ‘King Fish’, arrive at the location. He said he then saw shots being fired in the direction of a man in a white shirt who was seated on the ground behind the Mitsubishi Outlander.

Wildman began questioning Green on Tuesday by asking whether he had actually seen a man in a white shirt behind the Outlander being shot by someone who got out of the ‘King Fish’. Green replied: "Someone came out of the King Fish and shot in that direction, the direction of the man in the white shirt."

The defence attorney then asked Green whether that same person, who allegedly came from the ‘King Fish’, dragged an Indian man from the blue Mitsubishi Outlander. Green answered, "yes".

"You heard explosions at that time?" Wildman asked. Green responded: "When the Indian man was pulled out of the car, there were explosions happening".

Wildman also asked Green to tell the jury whether he knew how a man, whom he said had climbed over a green wall into a yard, ended up dead. Green said: "The man went over the wall, fell in the yard and gunshots were fired in his direction. I can only tell you that gunshots were fired and the next thing I saw, he was on the ground."

Using the crime scene photographs being shown to the jurors, Wildman asked Green whether he accepted that the Outlander was parked near Evan’s Avenue, which connects to Acadia Drive. He also asked whether Green had seen the avenue while the incident was taking place.

"Did you see the avenue on that day?" Wildman asked. Green said the photographs showed an avenue near where the vehicle was positioned, but added that he was "not familiar with that avenue" when the shooting occurred.

"I never asked you whether you were familiar with it. Did you see the avenue there on the day of the incident? That is the question," Wildman insisted.

Green told the lawyer and the jury that, as he had already said, he did not know the avenue at the time and was not concentrating on it. "My focus was not on the avenue. When I came [to the window] and looked out, clearly I was looking at what was happening," the minister said.

Wildman then asked the court registrar to place photo number 23, exhibit 2, on the screen so Green and the jury could view it. After looking at the image, Green said: "I have looked at it." Wildman then asked whether he was prepared to accept that the Mitsubishi Outlander was parked close to the corner of Evans Avenue. Green answered: "I accept that the car is parked close to the avenue."

As Wildman intensified his cross-examination, trial judge Sonia Bertram Linton intervened and reprimanded him, saying he had been rude to the minister. The exchange followed a question about what Green could have seen at the time from the bedroom window on the third floor of the apartment building where he lived.

Green, appearing irritated, said, "Mr Wildman," while looking at the attorney. Wildman then told the minister to stop repeating his name. Bertram-Linton told Wildman that his tone toward Green was not acceptable and described him as rude.

"There is no need for you to do what you just did. Withdraw it. It is as simple as that and don’t start arguing with me. You are not going to win because that is not how the court is structured. It is structure for the judge to rule and for you to comply. Just simply comply sir," the judge said.

Bertram-Linton continued: "That is how the court is structured and those are the rules we abide by and the rules are there for a reason even when we don’t like it. The rules are the rules. There are lots of rules that we don’t like inuh. You see 50 miles an hour, but you want to go 80. But you see the policeman over there so you go down to 50. You just do it because you don’t want the ticket. Your tone was not correct."

The six policemen before the court on murder charges are Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, and constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose and Richard Lynch. Fullerton is also accused of making a false statement to the Independent Commission of Investigations.