Lenorah Thomas’s son, a policeman, was shot dead in what law enforcers said at the time was a robbery at a bar in the western sea coast town of Hopewell, Hanover, on April 4, 2015 — the circumstances of which she and others have stoutly disputed.

And even the evidence that has come out of the now seven-year ordeal has raised questions about what investigators had claimed initially.

But the reality is that Thomas, a veteran educator and guidance counsellor at Hopewell High School, has been without a son she trusted, believed in, and swears by his honesty, for seven years.

K’Mar Beckford, who at the time of his death was assigned to Bethel Town Police Station in Westmoreland, was reportedly killed by a bullet fired from the gun of another member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Inspector Wayne Jacobs, who had told the Inspectorate of the Constabulary and the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), in separate statements, that he had been a patron in the bar which, he said, Beckford had tried to rob. That, Jacobs said, resulted in him shooting Beckford.

At the time, Beckford, who lived in Springfield, St Elizabeth, was staying with his mother in Lucea.

The bartender was said to be injured by a bullet during the shooting.

It later emerged that there were gaps in the statements submitted by eyewitnesses and the on-site investigations that followed.

While the Inspectorate of the constabulary remained mum on the investigations weeks after, an INDECOM official contacted by the Jamaica Observer revealed that there had been discrepancies in the reports that were received up to that point, saying at the time that the investigation was “at a very, very delicate stage, and some things do not seem right”.

INDECOM later stated that there was no evidence to recommend that criminal charges should be filed against Inspector Jacobs, who, according to unconfirmed reports reaching the Sunday Observer, has since retired from the constabulary.

INDECOM had also recommended, though, that the matter be referred to the Coroner’s Court to determine whether or not an inquest would be necessary. That was 2016. Now, Thomas is hoping that the court, which meets in session at Hanover Parish Court in Lucea tomorrow morning — on the anniversary of her son’s death — will at least pave the way for her son’s name to be cleared.

“My son did not do what they said he did, and I am continuing the fight to clear his name,” Thomas said about the matter that was first called up in the Coroner’s Court on November 26, 2021, and was put off for tomorrow’s date.

“I don’t know what it will be like, because I have never been in a courthouse, apart from that time last November, and I have said to myself, ‘God, why did they have to set it for that day — the anniversary of the day he died. Do I have to go there and listen again to the torture that they put my son through and torture me in the process?’ But I don’t know what God has in store.”

Even without a lawyer to watch the proceedings on her and her family’s behalf, Thomas is prepared to go the full journey in her quest to prove that her son was innocent. Her last retained counsel, she said, has not been responding to her after several calls made to his office, and she does not feel obligated to call him again.

There is also another side to the story that the grieving mother, who now cares for her deceased son’s child, wants to highlight as part of the equation.

At the time of K’Mar’s death, the police had released the photograph of another constable, named Kemar Beckford, who was a member of the Trelawny Division. One media organisation even carried the photograph, but later apologised for doing so.

“When he died, the picture that was posted was that of a young man who had the same name, from the Trelawny Division, the only difference with his name and my son’s is that my son has an apostrophe,” Thomas said.

“I believe that it was a case of mistaken identity. Why did they kill my son and then the police presented the picture to the media of another policeman? Could it have meant that the other police was the intended target? They had his picture ready to present. That picture was carried on TV, and the station later called me to apologise,” the mother added.

Beckford was buried on May 2, 2015 in Springfield, north-west St Elizabeth.

“He was not a rogue cop, and I am prepared to fight to the end to prove that he wasn’t,” Thomas insisted of her firstborn of three when the Sunday Observer spoke with her on Friday.

She said that on the night of the incident her son had been called to the bar by someone she did not know, and he entered the premises with two firearms — one issued by the constabulary and the other owned by him.

A police source had confirmed to the Sunday Observer that no shot was fired from either of Beckford’s guns.

The initial report of him entering the bar with a mask, too, was in dispute, as photographs from the crime scene after it was sealed off showed him with a mask placed on his face turned upside down.

Beckford’s mother said that the 25-year-old was aspiring to become a psychologist and was close to doing two more subjects in 2015 to prepare him for entry into college.

Late in April 2015 Thomas told the Sunday Observer that she was “not seeking revenge, neither am I asking for anyone’s head. The police commissioner needs to act. When my son graduated from police training school at age 19 he said something to me that I will always remember. He told me: ‘A policeman can be your good friend, but he can also be your worst enemy.’ How profound is that statement,” Thomas asked.