February 5, 2002
JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY Dear Friends, Delroy Lewis received three police bullets -- to the side of the head, the shouldeer and the chest. The bullets to the head and the shoulder had a downward trajectory suggesting that they were fired at an angle above the victim. (The police claimed that Delroy was coming down a hill when they fired at him in a shootout.) The bullet to the chest was near the arm pit suggesting that his arm was probably raised above his head since his arm was not damaged. The policemen who committed this act of extrajudicial execution were absolved of any legal responsibility by a Coroner's jury nine months after a hearing had begun. The Coroner, who asked no questions of witnesses, and did no summation of the relevant testimonies (apart from a verbatim and tedious read back of ALL the testimonies to an obviously tired jury) lamely told the jury, i.e., without the usual legal niceties about their responsibilities and the facts of law, to return a verdict of murder, manslaughter or justifiable homicide. Within three minutes the jury returned and the foreman said "Open verdict. Not unable [sic] to say how Delroy Lewis was killed." The Coroner declined to ask the foreman about the meaning of his grammar. He simply thanked the jury for their service, leaving Delroy's family in a state of shock and disbelief. That the jury used language other than what was suggested to them immediately confirmed that this was a jury of men and women selected by the police and who for the most part had been giving years of service as jurors in other cases of police killings and had become quite proficient in serving the cause of the police. Among the crucial ingredients in assisting the jury to shirk their responsibility was the fact that the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) (the police investigating body) did no investigation whatsoever and was unable to help the court in determining where the killing took place. No photographs were produced nor were they able to get any statement from witnesses. The BSI investigator testified that he has yet to receive the gun purportedly used by Delroy Lewis to fire at the police. The Lewis case comes on the heels of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) scuttling a Coroner's jury's verdict to hold three policemen responsible for the death of Patrick Genius. This decision was taken by the appointed-for-life DPP despite the fact that all of the shots received by Genius were to the back -- three to the head and two to the legs. Nor was there gunpowder residue on his hands to support the police claim that he fired at them. This bizarre decision of the DPP was similar to his refusal in 1999 to prosecute those police and soldiers who were found criminally responsible for beating Michael Gayle to death. And now in the case of the seven Braeton youth who were last year murdered by Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and his death squad we are seeing the judicial system at work once again using all the means at its disposal to assist the police case. The chief culprit in this respect is the DPP representative. He has far from carried out a thorough examination of witnesses to solicit all the relevant evidence against the police. In the case of one witness he refused to adduce evidence indicating the dastardly role played by Reneto Adams on the morning of the killings. He seemed more content with exploiting the low literacy level of his witnesses and thereby confusing them in order to impeach the veracity of their testimonies. Evidence about an individual (with a plastic bag on his head to hide his identity) who apparently assisted the police in rousing the seven youth was not pursued. Reporters were asked instead by the judge not to publish the individual's name. The implication is clear that the DPP will in all likelihood not call this individual to testify and thereby assist the police in suppressing evidence that would expose their lies of a shootout. In the case of Dr. Leth, the Amnesty-sponsored pathologist who visited the house where the killings took place, there was no attempt to seek his opinion on how seven men could have been killed by any of the versions that the police have so far given as to how the young men came to meet their death. In disputed matters of procedure and line of questioning the judge has consistently sided with the police lawyer and the DPP against the lawyers representing the families of the deceased youth. The judge's bias was clearly exposed when in response to a question from a juror about the principle of whether someone is innocent until proven guilty, refused to categorically endorse this judicial principle and instead gave an answer supportive of the DPP's introduction of "character" evidence against the youth. Enquiring into the youths' character rather than how they came to meet their death is a police attempt to justify the killings and the judge has exposed her hand. At no level of official society is there any outrage at the high level of police homicides and the criminal justice system clearly works in favor of police impunity. The question is, therefore: are we past the stage of reform? Lloyd D'Aguilar
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