A detective inspector of police, the Crown’s 11th witness in the ongoing trial of reputed gang boss Tesha Miller and 24 others accused of being part of the Klansman gang, on Wednesday described how he and 14 other cops thwarted what intelligence suggested would have been a heist or “an attack” at the Cross Roads Post Office in St Andrew in September of 2018.

The lawman’s evidence goes to count 13 of the indictment brought by the Crown which charges Miller for “knowingly giving instructions to a criminal organisation contrary to Section 7 (1) (b) of the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act” — commonly called the anti-gang law. According to the Crown, Miller, “on a day unknown between September 1, 2018 and September 26, 2018 in the parish of Kingston, knowingly gave instruction to a criminal organisation in furtherance of its involvement in criminal activity to wit: the robbery at Cross Roads”. The following count, Count 14 of the said indictment, charges Miller and the accused, Michael Wildman, for “facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation”, contrary to Section 6 (1) (b) of the anti-gang Act.

Wednesday, the sleuth who said he led the planned operation on September 26, 2018 as the then sub-officer in charge of the Special Operations Division of the now defunct Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigation Branch (CTOC), said he and some cops were covert (not dressed as police) while staking out the area, while others were overt. He said the police team “saturated the area because they were not sure who would be carrying out the attack or the robbery”.

“We placed ourselves in different positions in the vicinity of where the intelligence suggested the robbery would take place at, Cross Roads in the vicinity between Mother’s (quick service restaurant) and the post office. There is a service entrance that the post office uses to drop off and pick up,” the cop told the court. He said while there, he was “looking out for persons who were acting suspiciously, motor vehicles idle with persons in it, and persons with bulges in their waistband”. According to the cop, while scanning, he saw a man who was previously profiled by the police in relation to robberies walking in his direction.

He said things went rapidly downhill after that man, who was one of three who were in the vicinity apparently waiting to strike, recognised him.

“He was about three to four feet from me, he looked at me, I looked at him, our eyes made four and he turned away in the opposite direction. I continued to observe him. He said something to another male that was there,” said the cop, who was being led in his evidence by an acting assistant director of public prosecutions.

He said that about-turn by the suspect and the fact that he spoke to someone else “aroused” his suspicions.

“I alerted the other teams using hand signals and we intercepted both men,” he said, adding that after collaring those two men and speaking to them the police team further intercepted a vehicle which was parked at the taxi stand to the side of the Post Office, with the third man behind the wheel. He said after those men were taken to CTOC’s base for further questioning due to “utterances” they made while at the scene, a fourth individual, the driver of a mail van for the Post Office, was also taken in by cops.

He said the men were all interviewed, profiled and fingerprinted. According to the cop, based on the information given by the suspects, he instructed that statements be recorded from the men who he said were released at some point without being charged.

“We had no evidence to prove or disprove their involvement in the matter, but based on the utterances made by them I chose to record for intelligence purposes,” he said while noting that the statements recorded from the three men were “in relation to why they were at the location”. He said a statement was also taken from the mail van driver.

In explaining why an investigating officer was not assigned, he said this was because an offence “was not necessarily constituted based on the investigation”. Furthermore, he said the men were not armed and so were not charged for possession.

The cop, in ending his evidence in chief, said the statements and forms he collected from that incident were placed in a file and stashed in a drawer in his office where he has operational outcomes files. He told the court that the file remained there until he was approached by an inspector from CTOC in 2024 at which point he made copies for himself and handed over the originals to that individual.

That file and its contents, which were of interest to attorney for Miller, John Clarke, resulted in an early adjournment of the matter to enable the cop to produce the file.

When the matter resumed later in the afternoon, the cop staunchly stood down attempts by Clarke to prove that he departed from protocol which guides the taking of statements from individuals while in police custody.

“They were brought into custody to facilitate an interview, not intelligence purposes at the time, based on utterances they made at the scene, they were brought into custody,” the cop maintained further.

While noting that those “utterances” were not in his personal statement which he produced seven years after the incident, he said they were in the statements that were recorded from the men.

Under sustained probe by Clarke, the lawman maintained that he did not know when the men were released or at what point they gave their statement. He explained that he had been told by his commander that the men were needed by other police personnel for questioning in relation to other matters.

The trial resumes at 10:00 this morning before Supreme Court judge, Justice Dale Palmer, where the defence will resume their cross-examination. A second prosecution witness in relation to count 13 is also expected to take the stand.