MANCHESTER, Jamaica — The Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) says Wednesday’s fatal shooting by the police in Manchester has increased the number of those incidents involving the security forces to 140 so far this year with a senior official there labelling the figure as “extraordinarily high”.

In the latest incident, a man identified by Indecom as Moses Morgan was fatally shot by the police during an alleged confrontation.

Assistant Commissioner at Indecom, Hamish Campbell, said the police claimed Moses acted suspiciously before the confrontation.

“They report that they were on patrol, four officers, when they saw a man who was acting suspiciously go towards a house which turned out to be his own house. Officers went into the house and reported that there was a struggle inside the house where this man attempted to grab the rifle of one of the police officers and in that struggle the officers shot the man and he was killed and a firearm was recovered from the man in the waist of his trousers, a revolver pistol,” Campbell said the police reported to Indecom in an initial report.

However, residents are challenging the police’s version of the incident.

Read: Man fatally shot by police in Manchester, residents angry

Campbell said Indecom is following through with its protocols in probing the fatal shooting.

“Mr Morgan’s death is the 140th fatal shooting by the security services, primarily the JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) this year, so it is an extraordinarily high number of fatalities this year,” said Campbell.

“In 2022, the total number of people shot and killed by the security forces was 134. We are now at 140 just per the start of the sixth month of this year. In 2021, it was 107, so we can see as we have been reporting, a very different approach has been taken this year with over 20 people killed per month. Twenty-five were just killed in May and we are in June now and four people have been killed,” he said.

— Kasey Williams