A ballistics expert who was contracted by the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) to reconstruct some of the events surrounding the shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Ucliffe Dyer and Mark Allen, said on Tuesday that at least one person was shot while the front passenger door on the left side of a motor vehicle was open.

The expert said he formed that conclusion because blood spatter was found on certain parts of the car that are connected to the door, and could only have gotten there if the door was open when the individual was hit by a bullet.

Six cops are on trial for murder in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston, in relation to the January 12, 2013 shooting deaths of Lee, Dyer and Allen.

On trial for murder are Sergeant Simroy Mott and Corporal Donovan Fullerton, along with constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose, and Richard Lynch. Corporal Fullerton is also charged with making a false statement to Indecom.

The cops have maintained that they were fired upon by men who alighted from a blue Mitsubishi Outlander motor vehicle on Acadia Drive in Barbican, St Andrew, close to the intersection with Evans Avenue. They said they returned fire and three of the men were killed. A fourth man was said to have escaped on Evans Avenue. Two illegal firearms were allegedly seized.

The expert’s comments came, Tuesday, during examination-in-chief which was conducted by prosecutor, Kathy-Ann Pyke.

“A person was shot at least once while that person was near the opened passenger door at the front. That person would have had clothing similar to blue denim. The person received a through and through wound from an M16 bullet,” he told the court.

In photographs shown of the interior of the blue Outlander, red substance resembling blood was spattered on the front passenger seat.

The expert said that for spatter to be made, a high- energy source such as a 5.56 mm bullet would have made contact with soft tissue. He also told the court that, based on his observations of the car and crime scene photos, the cop who fired that round was to the left side of the front passenger door.

He was unable to tell the court from which angle the bullet was fired. The expert was certain, however, that a bullet left a rifle as a single projectile, then pushed through soft tissue, carrying energy out of the exit wound and projecting blood tissue and fabric forward. A fragment from that bullet lodged in the dashboard of the vehicle on the passenger side.

The attorneys representing the cops are Hugh Wildman, Althea Grant-Coppin and John Jacobs.