UNLIKE Michael Gayle, there was no blocking of roads or public demonstration. Neither was it a major story in the media.

However, the January 24 shooting by the police of Austin ‘Stamma’ Fitzgerald Barnett in Cockburn Gardens, located off Olympic Way in Kingston, has left another Jamaican family bitter against the police and the state.

Barnett, the police reported, was killed in a ‘shootout’ with lawmen at about 8:30 on the night of January 24.

However, family members allege that he was murdered by the police. The Bureau of Special Investigation is probing the case.

Barnett’s younger brother, Michael Barnett, a small business operator, told the Observer Sunday after his brother’s funeral service at the Waterford Seventh-day Adventist Church in St Catherine that ‘Stamma’, who got the name because of a speech impediment that caused him to stutter, was stopped by the police and asked where he lived.

“Because he stutters a lot, he had a problem explaining so he gesticulated and pointed to where he was living,” said Barnett. Stamma was shot once in the neck, he added, and was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead and recorded as an unidentified man.

He said the post-mortem, which was observed by a private family doctor, showed that Barnett had a gun burn on the neck.

The BSI investigator probing the case, Corporal K Miller, yesterday referred the Observer to his commanding officer ACP Granville Gause for comment. Gause’s office said he could not speak as he was about to leave his office for court.

The family allege that the shooter is attached to the Hunts Bay police station.

Austin, a Rastafarian, and the father of 10 children, earned his living by selling clothes along Orange Street in Kingston and at the Falmouth market in Trelawny.

On Sunday, one of his children, Andre, a prefect at the Edwin Allen Comprehensive High School in Clarendon, broke down in tears he was giving the welcome at his father’s funeral service.

He had to be escorted from the pulpit by his uncle, Michael. Members of the Edwin Allen prefect body who later performed a song, asked their schoolmate to have courage in a difficult time.

Other family members who participated in the ceremony could not hide their anger at the police.

“Jah would never give the power to a baldhead. Run come crucify the dread. Time alone, oh, time alone will tell.,” Austin’s sister, Fay, quoted from a Bob Marley song after reading from a poem she wrote for her brother.

The most scathing attack on the police, however, came from Michael Barnett, in his eulogy.

“Jamaica has lost a great aspiring young man, a friend, a brother, a father, a taxpayer whose money helped to hire, train and pay policemen and women and to buy the very bullet that they used to cut him down in a cold-blooded way, in his own yard,” he said.

“. They (police) harass innocent youth and assume every poor young man is a criminal. Some of these foolish policemen have drained the credibility of the force and have made it so difficult to gain the confidence and respect of communities to help in fighting crime.”

Family members, he added, have been left with unanswered questions about the tragic death of their loved one.

“Was it a master plan?”

“Was it destiny?”

“Is it just another bitter cry of injustice?”

Family members, Michael told the Observer, have asked local human rights groups to take up the case, and vowed that the family would pursue whatever is necessary to get justice in the matter.

“Hold fast to the sweet memories of a great father, brother, friend, because no amount of bullets can remove our memories,” Michael said in the eulogy to his older brother who would have celebrated his 39th birthday on February 16.

– sankeyp@jamaicaobserver.com