Cops freed of murder in Crofts Hill case
Four cops who were charged with murder in the shooting death of 18 year-old Christopher McKenzie in 2005 were freed in the Clarendon Home Circuit Court on Thursday.
The cops, Corporal Howard Tavares and constables Easton McGregor and Cecile Wright-Anderson along with district constable Sheryl McKay, were acquitted after the prosecution failed to provide enough evidence that the cops did not act in self-defence and Justice Lloyd Hibbert instructed the 12-member jury to return with a not guilty verdict on those grounds.
In handing down the verdict, the judge described the case as a prosecution’s nightmare.
The police reported that in a mad rage, McKenzie broke down the door to a barrack room at the Crofts Hill Police Station and attacked Wright-Anderson with a machete. During a struggle between McKenzie and three officers who had rushed to their colleague’s assistance, McKenzie was shot.
A post mortem examination conducted by a government pathologist and the report of the independent observer representing McKenzie’s relatives, revealed that McKenzie’s body had several bruises and scrapes and cuts on his face and head. He was also shot twice, once in the back and in the back of his head.
In the hours after his killing in March 2005, residents of Crofts Hill staged a massive demonstration and challenged the police version of the killing.
The irate residents had accused the cops of conspiring to kill McKenzie.
The cops claimed that McKenzie was a stranger to the community, but it was proven in court that McKenzie, a resident of the United States, had relatives in the district and visited them every summer. He was booked to return to the United States a day after the fateful incident.
Yesterday, Carolyn Gomes, executive director of human rights group Jamaicans For Justice, expressed dismay at the outcome of the case.
According to Gomes, the cops walked free because it could not be proved what exactly happened inside the station.
The police fatally shot 493 persons between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2006, including 227 last year.
