IN a case that may well qualify for Ripley's Believe it or not, the Greater Portmore police Saturday charged three dead men with three counts of robbery with aggravation, illegal possession of firearm and ammunition and shooting with intent at the police.
To be clear, the men were charged after they were dead.

Williams. the case is cleared up because we have no one to arrest

The police now say this is regular procedure, and that cases of this nature fall under the label 'cleared up' in police statistics.
The three men were shot by cops Friday night in what the police said was a shoot-out in Daytona, Greater Portmore, St Catherine.
Two of them - Sean Ricardo Williams, 23 and Leo Anthony Ennis, 26 - died Friday night during the alleged gun battle, while Damian Russell, 26, died in hospital at about 3:00 am Saturday.

Yesterday, police sources said that this was the first time that they had ever seen anything like this, and predicted that the issue was likely to raise questions about police procedure.

But, others said it was a regular practice in the constabulary.
"It's the usual thing," Detective Constable C Brown of the Greater Portmore police told the Observer yesterday. "They did commit the offences. This is the procedure. It happens all the time, even if it is not being said."

According to Brown, if the police have enough evidence to determine that the men committed the crimes, they can be charged. "In the case of these men, complainants have identified the bodies as the ones who robbed them, so they were formally charged," Brown said.
But assistant commissioner of police George Williams, the man in charge of the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), insisted it would be incorrect to say the deceased men were "charged".

"It is just that the cases against them are 'cleared up'," he said, conceding that this was normal police procedure.
"It is normal that where cases are reported against someone, then investigations are done and if the alleged offender is held alive he is arrested and charged," said Williams.

"However if the alleged offender should die by any means, as long as that person is identified by the complainant as the same one who committed the offence against them, we record the complainant's statement and the case is cleared up because we have no one to arrest ... it is normal procedure," he insisted.

The practice has no oversight, neither from the Office of the Director of Prosecutions nor the courts.

The police simply mark the file closed, and the matter ends there.
"The alleged accused is dead... the matter is cleared up," Williams said.
In the current 'cleared up' case, the Greater Portmore police accused the three men of being serial robbers.

They report that about 10:00 pm Friday, a motorised police party went in search of alleged gunmen said to be travelling in a gray Toyota Corona motor car.

Following reports that some men were robbing residents in the area, the police intensified their search for the vehicle in Daytona.
They intercepted a car registered 4358 EP.

Police said four men alighted from the vehicle with guns blazing at them. A shoot-out ensued in which three of the gunmen were injured.
The police said they took the injured men to hospital where Williams and Ennis were pronounced dead, while Russell was admitted under police guard, but succumbed to his injuries early Saturday.
According to the police, they took two 9mm pistols loaded with five cartridges from the men.

Yesterday, Brown said that alleged robbery victims identified the dead men as the perpetrators of the robberies and gave written statements to the police concerning their positive identification of the robbers.
It was at that time, according to Brown, that the police laid criminal charges against the dead men

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