Green back on the witness stand in murder trial of six cops

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Agriculture Minister Floyd Green was on Friday recalled to the witness stand in the murder trial of six cops, to identify photographs related to the 2013 crime scene on Acadia Drive in St Andrew to which the pictures are linked.

The cops are on trial in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston in relation to the January 12, 2023, shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Ucliffe Dyer and Mark Allen.

The men were killed during an alleged shootout with the police. It was reported that cops were conducting an operation when they signalled to the driver of a blue Mitsubishi Outlander motor vehicle to stop. When the vehicle stopped, it is alleged that men alighted and engaged the police in a gunfight during which they were killed. A fourth man was said to have escaped.

Being one of two eye-witnesses to some of the events related to the killing of the men, Green was the first witness to take the stand when the trial started in January.

During examination-in-chief on Friday, prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke showed Green some photographs digitally as well as on paper. He was asked to look at the crime scene photographs on the papers and make certain markings and indications. The markings made on the photographs by Green were to indicate where the three men were shot, as well as where the police were said to have been firing from, among other details.

Using different coloured inks, Green pointed to the areas where the accused and the now deceased were in relation to each other when the men were killed. The minister was also asked to create a key to explain his markings.

Hugh Wildman, one of three defence attorneys in the case, objected to the witness being asked to make markings without the jurors or the defence being able to see what was being done on paper.

Trial judge Sonia Bertram-Linton explained to Wildman that the marked images would be made available for the defence team, which includes John Jacobs and Althea Grant-Coppin, to view.

Before Green was handed the physical copies of the photographs for him to mark, he was shown the same images on a digital screen and asked to say whether he recognised anything in them.

“I recognise a number of things, including the Luxury Vale Apartment complex. The building is three storeys, and we are looking at the second and third floor,” Green said in his response, while looking at photograph number 23 of the crime scene.

When shown photograph number 33, Green said, “We are looking at Acadia Drive. There is a motor vehicle parked on the road. I recognise the blue Mitsubishi Outlander, the wall for the house across the road that I referenced before.”

As Green viewed photographs numbered 47 and 48, he pointed to a house with gates wide open across from where the minister lived at the time of the January 2013 incident.

“That’s the house across the street. In the background is the Luxury Vale Apartment, where I used to reside. We are seeing the second and third floor. The upper window on the left was my bedroom.”

The minister explained to the seven-member jury that when he first saw the motor vehicle, a man emerged from a passenger seat in the back before jumping over a wall and into the yard on the other side of the road from where the apartment is.

The prosecution team is expected to complete its examination-in-chief of Green on Monday, after which the defence team will question Green during cross-examination.