The detective sergeant who was on duty at a Spanish Town, St Catherine bus park the night of February 2018 when a man known as “Tesha bus driver” was slaughtered by assassins allegedly attached to the Klansman gang on Tuesday described how the mortally wounded man tried to speak even as doctors fought to save his life.

“He was trying to speak but I could not understand what he was saying,” said the detective sergeant who Tuesday morning took the stand to testify in the ongoing trial of the 33 accused members of the criminal organisation now on trial before Chief Justice Bryan Sykes at the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.

The detective who said he had been stationed in the bus park as a result of the ongoing extortion by gangsters told the courtroom that the ill-fated driver had been the only one to make a formal complaint to the police against the thugs.  He said other operators had been too fearful to make formal complaints but had voiced their concerns to him.

According to the lawmen he and two others were on duty in the park on the night of February 6, 2018 for a shift which would end at midnight. He said, on that night, he and the other officers stood security for the bus driven by the marked man known to him as “Tandy Bay” while it was in the loading bay. He said the bus which plied the Spanish Town to May Pen route finished loading at 8:50 pm and then proceeded to exit the park, moving from his line of sight.

Explosions alerted the lawmen to the fact that the bus had come under attack.

According to the officer, upon racing to the area from which the sounds came they realised that the bus had stopped and passengers were pouring from the windows and through the doors in a frantic rush leaving the injured driver inside. The cop said motorists who saw the incident were also reversing their cars rapidly down the one way street.

He said, after calling for assistance from police emergency, he decided to drive the injured man to the hospital where he handed him over to a team of doctors and nurses.

The accused Marco Miller, Chevroy Evans, Brian Morris, Andre Golding, Ricardo Thomas and Michael Whitely are facing charges for that murder which is count 17 on the indictment. 

– Alicia Dunkley-Willis