Wildman presses Indecom witness on possible fourth man in Barbican police shooting case

Defence attorney Hugh Wildman on Monday probed whether a fourth man may have been present when a deadly police shooting unfolded on Acadia Drive in Barbican, St Andrew, on January 12, 2013. He put the question to an Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) officer during the murder trial of six members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

The officers are before the Home Circuit Court in Kingston on murder charges linked to the deaths of Matthew Lee, Ucliffe Dyer and Mark Allen. The three were in a blue Mitsubishi Outlander that police stopped in the course of an operation. Prosecutors say occupants left the vehicle and confronted officers in an exchange of gunfire, and that Lee, Dyer and Allen died in that alleged confrontation. A fourth individual was reported to have fled along Evans Avenue, which meets Acadia Drive at the location of the incident. Two illegal guns were recovered after the shooting.

Wildman asked the Indecom investigator whether Agriculture Minister Floyd Green and another purported eyewitness had at any stage referred to a fourth person being there. He also sought to establish whether the officer had obtained any such information and whether it appeared in a statement.

The investigator told the court he succeeded in securing only two people said to have witnessed the events, because others refused to cooperate. He mentioned getting an anonymous telephone call but could not say with certainty when talk of a fourth man arose.

“These two witnesses sent an anonymous letter. I don’t think the letter mentioned a fourth man. I don’t recall if it was mentioned during the call, or at what point the fourth man was mentioned, but it was mentioned,” the Indecom officer said. He added that he could not remember whether he had specifically asked Green and the second eyewitness about a fourth man. He did ask whether they had written an anonymous letter to Indecom about the shooting, but could not remember what they answered. He said Indecom recorded a statement from Green only after taking one from the other eyewitness.

Wildman further asked whether justices of the peace had witnessed those statements, and whether failing to do so would breach a provision of the Indecom Act requiring a JP to witness certain statements the agency obtains.

“The statements were not witnessed by a JP but I can’t agree that it was illegal. The JP signed the statement afterwards,” the officer replied.

Asked if he had inspected the inside of the Mitsubishi Outlander, he said he had not. He did, however, enter a yard opposite the apartment block where Green and the other eyewitness lived when the shooting occurred.

“I didn’t examine the Outlander any more than what was shown to me at the scene,” he said. He again noted that a police superintendent was already on the ground when he arrived sometime after midday, and that he was shown the two firearms said to have been taken from the men.

Last week, a ballistics specialist hired by Indecom testified that material pointed to those two illegal weapons having been discharged at the scene.

Proceedings resume Tuesday, when Wildman and fellow defence counsel Althea Grant-Coppin and John Jacobs are expected to continue cross-examining the Indecom officer. Justice Sonia Bertram-Linton is hearing the case with a seven-member jury. Kathy-Ann Pyke leads for the prosecution, assisted by Cygale Pennant of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.