THE woman who was shot by a lone gunman while he was leaving the Above Rocks station March 1, 2001 after killing Constable Dwight Gibson and a former customs officer, Dennis Betton, on Thursday testified at the Coroner’s inquest into the killing of seven youth at Braeton by the police on March 14, last year.

In the evidence in chief led by Herbie McKenzie, assistant director of public prosecutions, the woman testified that the policeman who took her to the Spanish Town funeral home on March 21, to identify the man who shot her, asked the porter to bring the body of Christopher Grant. She said that she identified the body brought out by the porter as that of the man who shot her, but did not learn that his name was Grant until sometime after.

During cross examination of the witness by Richard Rowe, representing the estate of Tamayo Wilson and the other deceased youth, he read a section of the witness’ statement to the police to her. It stated: “I was shown the body of a male person on a stretcher who I identified.”

In later cross examination, the witness also said that “they take out three bodies and I identify one as the person who shot me so they never take out any more bodies”.

The witness testified that at about 10:30 am on March 1, while walking from a shop in Above Rocks with her 28 year old daughter and her two-month-old granddaughter in her arms, she saw Betton drive past them in his van and stop at the police station. About 25 feet from where she and her daughter were standing, she saw Betton alight from the van and walk towards the station.

“By the time I to reach the station is him (Betton) I see stretch out on the floor by the entrance of the station,” the witness said. She said that she believed Betton had fallen ill and remarked to her daughter that it was the right place for him to have taken ill as the police would look after him.

She testified that by the time she reached the telephone booth about six to eight feet from the station entrance, she saw a “fair” young man who wore a “tie head” run out of the station with a handgun in each hand firing two shots into the air. She said that a few moments later, “I feel something boom and I feel something burning me on my right shoulder”. After she realised that she had been shot, she saw the gunman backing away from the station in the opposite direction from where she was standing, glancing from side to side.

An alarm was raised and she was put in a taxi which took her to the Bog Walk station where she made a report, after which she took a taxi to the Linstead hospital. An ambulance then took her from the Linstead hospital to the Spanish Town hospital.

Before the witness presented her testimony, objections were raised by Maurice Saunders, the attorney representing the estates of the deceased youth, who said her evidence would be prejudicial and was not relevant to the inquiry. Coroner Lorna Errar-Gayle, however, ruled that the probative value of the witness’ evidence would outweigh its prejudicial value.