Cops in controversial Grants Pen shooting get bail
THE four police officers implicated in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Grants Pen resident, Andre Thomas, were all granted bail when they appeared in the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
The policemen are charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice after they were accused of tampering with evidence crucial to a probe being conducted by the Bureau of Special Investigation into Thomas’ death.
On Monday the four, Detective Corporals Noel Brian and Phillip Dunstan and Constables Clayon Feron and Omar Miller – were ordered by Resident Magistrate Glen Brown to report once weekly to the Police Commissioner’s office, and to surrender their travel documents to Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas.
It is alleged that the cops effected changes to the service vehicle they used to transport Thomas to hospital after he was shot and injured. They were ordered to hand over the vehicle a day after the incident but turned in the sports utility vehicle almost a week after the orders were issued.
In a bail application on behalf of his clients Dunstan and Feron, attorney-at-law Peter Champagnie contended that allegations that the officers repeatedly made themselves unavailable for questioning following Thomas’ death on September 28, were false.
Champagnie added that the officers had been at the Constant Spring Police Station since last Friday and said no statements were given by eyewitnesses that Thomas was the victim of an extrajudicial killing.
Champagnie and attorney Bert Samuels, who represents Brian and Miller, noted that the officers had in the past received numerous commendations.
The matter is scheduled to return before the courts on November 29.
The police information arm, The Constabulary Communication Network alleged that Thomas, aka “Kunte”, died after he was shot in a shoot-out between a police patrol and a group of men on Grants Pen Road on September 28.
His death sparked much public outcry with family members describing the killing as a “cold-blooded murder”.
The police have, however, refuted the allegations.
