ACTING Deputy Superintendent of Police Dwight Phipps said the police operation in Braeton, St Catherine, on March 14, 2001 which led to the killing of seven young men, was directed from the police commissioner’s office in Kingston.

“This operation was directed from the commissioner’s office at Old Hope Road, (Kingston),” said Phipps, in giving testimony in the Home Circuit Court in the murder trial of five policemen charged with the murder of the seven men.

He said the plan was made on March 13 at a special meeting at the commissioner’s office at which citizens gave statements that caused the police to issue arrest warrants for the arrest of Cornwall Robinson for murder, and one of the seven deceased men, Christopher Grant, for the murder of Constable Gibson and retired customs officer Dennis Betton.

He said one of the four firearms retrieved from the house at 1088 Seal Way, Braeton, was that of police Constable Dwight Gibson, who was killed at the Above Rocks Police Station during a robbery in February 2001.

Phipps testified that on March 14, 2001, a police party went to 51 Cassava Piece, St Andrew, and took Conroy Robinson, who was wanted for murder. He said it was there he got further information which took them to Cumberland, St Catherine, where they took another man.

“At Cumberland we got information which led the police to 1088 Seal Way, Braeton, and the police had information to be careful ‘because they will shoot at you when you get to the gate’.”

He said, on arrival he heard gunshot explosions but heard no voices. He was at the rear of the party because of the information received he would not go near the house. “I got down low because it (gunshots) was terrible,” the policeman testified.

He told the court that when the shooting died down, he went to the house and an officer gave him four firearms, including the service revolver stolen from Gibson at the time of his murder.

Deputy Superintendent Maurice Goodgame of the Bureau of Special Investigation (BSI), in his testimony, said that on March 14, he went to the Spanish Town Morgue and saw seven bodies with gunshot wounds.

He also went to 1088 Seal Way and saw bullet holes inside the house, in the front and back doors, left front room window, living room and side windows. Bullet holes, he said, were also in the kitchen and bedroom walls, while there were bloodstains on the walls and floor in the living room and back bedroom.

Under cross examination from attorney Patrick Atkinson, Goodgame said the first thing in his investigation was to find out if the victims were armed, if guns were found in the house and if they were recently fired.

He admitted that it was for these reasons that he swabbed the hands of the seven victims for gunpowder residue, which he sent to the laboratory for analysis.

The trial continues today.

– whytetk@jamaicaobserver.com