ST CATHERINE, Jamaica – The father of a bus driver who was shot and killed by the police in Spanish Town, St Catherine in 2020, has been acquitted of wounding a cop during that same incident.

Denver Needham was cleared of all charges in the St Catherine parish court on Tuesday.

“It is a happy moment and it is a sad moment. I am free of the charge, but I have lost one of the greatest, greatest part of me; he was a brilliant, brilliant youth,” the 50-year-old Needham, who is also a bus driver, told Observer Online.

He is the father of Alex ‘Lexi’ Needham who was killed on Wednesday July 1, 2020.

Of the incident, the police reported that about 6:15 pm, the elder Needham used a machete to chop a policeman on his right hand, then fled the scene. However, Needham categorically denied this version of events and feels vindicated by his acquittal.

“The police claimed (my son) attacked them, but it was the one cop who attacked my son. He was trying to defend himself and the policeman shot him and kill him. I just tried to slap the policeman’s wrist with his gun hand with a machete after he tried to shoot my son another time in the head. The police fire three shot, two shot after my son’s belly, he sight (avoided) dem both and then the police turn it to his chest and shoot him right inna him chest, kill him on the spot,” Needham alleged, labelling the incident ‘traumatic’.

“After that, dem charge me for wounding with intent. But thank God for the video evidence that contradicted everything the policeman said happened. There was no crowd of 10 people, my son’s bus wasn’t obstructing traffic in Mr Lake’s private car park and there was no other police officer… My son was not even armed, he was killed in cold blood,” Needham added.

Needham thanked his lawyer, Isat Buchanan, and the Jamaican justice system for his freedom.

“The judge examined the evidence and in his final instructions to the jury, he told them that when I slapped the policeman with the machete, I did so with the intention to save my son’s life. I didn’t chop the policeman from behind to kill him or injure him, only to stop him from shooting my son for a final time. The judge ensured that the jury was reminded of these facts,” Needham said.

The official police report alleged that the younger Needham was loading a Toyota Coaster bus along Burke Road in the town, when a policeman on duty approached him and instructed that the bus should be moved to a designated area for public transportation.

An argument reportedly developed between the cop and the younger Needham, and the uniformed policeman was attacked and chopped several times. The younger Needham, 24-year-old Alex, otherwise called ‘Lexi’, was reportedly shot by another policeman who saw his colleague being attacked, and reportedly went to his rescue. Needham challenged the veracity of the police report.

“The policeman told a lot of lies, the video evidence is there for the world to see,” he said.