FLANKERS, St James – Family members of the two elderly men – 66 year-old Cecil Brown and 63 year-old David Bacchas of Flankers – whom police admitted to killing accidentally after first saying they were gunmen, are becoming increasingly agitated over the non-receipt of promised compensation from the state nearly two years after.

Overcome by frustration, Yvonne Bacchas, also known as Marie, daughter of one of the slain men, is threatening to lead a demonstration on the second anniversary of her father’s death in an attempt to procure justice, if family members are still in limbo then.

“As far as I am concerned, if the 25th of October is here and I cannot see anything done, I am going to take to the streets so them can look out fi me. Me a go back to the streets to demonstrate,” a distraught Bacchas told the Sunday Observer.

Bacchas was the second person in the week to express dissatisfaction with the pace of progress by the police in respect of the Flankers killings.

Collin Manning, newly elected president of the National Association of Taxi Operators, threatened islandwide protests if the police high command failed to release information on investigations into the death of Bacchas, who was a taxi driver.

“.Let me say here on this day, June 8, that this association is giving the police High Command 21 days to give us a written report that will put some closure to that case,” Manning said at a meeting of the association’s executive last Wednesday.

“If this is not done, I can tell you it will not be the Emancipation Declaration, but it will be hell and powder-house. We will not take a break on this one,” he said.

The Emancipation Declaration reference was in relation to a list of demands the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica made on the Government and politicians during a rally at Emancipation Park in Kingston last month. The rally was held just after business operators locked down their firms for half a day to protest against Jamaica’s high crime rate.

Both Bacchas and Brown were gunned down in a pre-dawn police operation headed by former St James crime chief Deputy Superintendent Derrick “Cowboy” Knight in October 2003.

The police initially said the elderly Bacchas and his passenger, Brown, a newspaper vendor, were killed when gunmen fired on a police party and they returned the fire. But after strong community outcry, the police later said the shootings were accidental.

The incident sparked three days of rioting in the troubled community near the tourist resort city of Montego Bay. At the time, minister of national security Dr Peter Phillips and former Commissioner of Police Francis Forbes met with the community and apologised for the fatal incident.

Promises were made that Government would offset the funeral costs and that swift justice would be pursued against the police culprits. But the process has been slow.

“Me really upset, but me waiting patiently to hear what them doing and what they have to do,” said Yvonne Bacchas. “They promised to compensate the families after the funeral and stuff but they don’t do anything all now, more than take care of the funeral expenses.”

She vividly recounted the details that immediately followed her learning of her father’s death. She said at the time she could not believe that the incident took place, as she knew her father was not a criminal.

The daughter of the dead taxi operator claimed that when she reached the scene where the shooting occurred she was still doubtful that her father was fatally shot, as there was no proof. The bodies and the motor vehicle had been removed from the scene.

“I went to the spot early in the morning. I did not see him. Everything was removed from the spot already, the car moved, everything move, everything clean up, the entire spot clean up and that was early morning,” she recounted.

She was still unconvinced after she visited the hospital because the body had already been removed from there. But, upon her visit to the morgue, the reality hit her forcefully. She saw her father’s lifeless body, with the back of the head completely bashed in.

“What make me really believe was when me see the back of the head, because there was nothing there. This was completely gone and them set this bag and stuff to catch whatsoever was coming out of the head,” she said.

“When I saw that, I said ‘mom, daddy really dead fi true’. That was where it took hold of me. But I have fi bear up for she (her mother). Because I was the only one around at the time,” she recalled, on the brink of tears.

Bacchas said she has two brothers who were both abroad at the time of the shooting. But the police, she claimed, were accusing them of using their father’s car to carry out criminal activities.

“They say my brothers were using the car to do armed robbery and all kind of stuff. And they were saying they used it the night before. But they (her brothers) were not in Jamaica from the January. They only returned two weeks after mi father dead. They weren’t here, so they (police) definitely kill me father and have a lying story.”

The death of Bacchas, who was the sole supporter of his wife Geneva, has created untold hardship for his widow. The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) has since disconnected the electricity from the family home for unpaid bills. Whenever it rains the roof leaks as well.

“Them no concern. Me always ah ask them what is she to live off but it come in like them no concern right now,” Bacchas said. “See it deh, the electricity cut off, so she actually a live inna darkness,” she gesticulated to the reporter. “The bill is there. Who is going to pay it? My father used to do them things there. See her house-top there, it a leak.”

Meanwhile, no one has yet been charged in connection with the death of either Bacchas or Brown.

Scotland Yard was called in to help with the case, an effort to ensure full transparency, the police said. The Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) submitted the case file to the director of public prosecutions (DPP) weeks after the shooting, but the DPP returned the file, saying it was incomplete.

In January this year, Opposition Leader Bruce Golding, during a visit to the community, had told the Observer that he had been informed by BSI boss Senior Superintendent Granville Gause that the returned file was still with the police.

“It is terrible, and it is something that we are going to be following up,” Golding promised at the time.

“It is quite obvious that some people who are in a position to influence the investigation are not particularly anxious for those matters to be brought to any conclusion,” he said.

Golding also charged that there appeared to be not only negligence in pursuing the investigation, but deliberate sabotage taking place to stall the probe and suppress evidence.

There were also reports last year that the cops’ weapons used during the incident had been sent abroad for ballistics testing.

“The recording of statements have been completed,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Ewart Grant of the BSI. “We are now awaiting ballistic reports from England from which we had sought forensic assistance.”

Meanwhile, attorney Oswald James, who represents the Bacchas family, said that he was awaiting a first hearing for the case but he was optimistic that an out-of-court settlement could be reached.

“We are awaiting the first hearing date but we are negotiating a settlement with the attorney-general,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“We are preparing for trial, but not ruling out a settlement before the trial date.”