By Balford Henry, Senior Staff Reporter 
JAMAICA DEFENCE Force soldiers fired just over 4,000 rounds of ammunition, a fraction of their allotment, during the July 7-10 operation in West Kingston.
Major Delroy Greenwood, Quartermaster
for the First Battalion, told yesterday's sitting of the Commission of Enquiry
into the operation, that
a total 50,535 rounds were handed out to the soldiers involved in the four-day
operation.
He said soldiers fired 4,133 rounds and returned the other 46,402 rounds to Up Park Camp, JDF headquarters.
The ammunition included rounds for Self Loading Rifles (SLRs) which are used by the rank and file of the army as well as the SA 80s, a slightly more modern and compact rifle, mainly used by the officers, including Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs). The rest were assigned to the M60 machine guns attached to the two V150s used in the operation.
Major Greenwood's evidence was one of the highlights of yesterday's proceedings, which heard from seven witnesses -- two soldiers, three police officers and two women who identified the policeman and the soldier killed on July 7.
Another highlight was the cross
examination of Corporal Leroy Nicely of the controversial Crime Management Unit
(CMU) who said that his team of about 25 men
had been instructed to go to Tivoli Gardens in search of guns, ammunition and
drugs.
Previously the enquiry had been told by police witnesses that the objective of the operation conducted by the security forces that morning, was to search the Golden Age Home on Last Street, Denham Town, for guns, based on their intelligence.
Cpl. Nicely said Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, head of the CMU who led the operation, was standing about a yard and a half from him giving the team instructions when the shooting started. He said that he took cover behind the perimeter wall at Tivoli Court across the street, but that "immediately afterwards" he saw SSP Adams some 30 yards away near Darling Street and Ebenezer Lane.
CMU member, Corporal Mark Henry, was crossing from the wall to the other side of Spanish Town Road, after shooting from Bread Lane started, when he was hit. Nicely alleged that the shots which hit Henry were fired from Tivoli Court and that none of the policemen were firing in that direction when the policeman ran towards Bread Lane.
He also testified to retrieving a .45 Thompson Ordinance pistol at the corner of Beeston and Regent Streets, after gunmen fled gunfire from his team's returned fire. SSP Adams had earlier testified that the Ordinance gun was retrieved at the perimeter wall at Tivoli Court when a man came to the wall and fired. He said that the man was shot and his body retrieved by a group, including women and children.
Corporal Nicely said that he looked through the holes in the perimeter wall at Tivoli Court, he saw men "firing and running all over the place", but none of them came within 40 yards of the perimeter wall. He said that the men who were firing tried to advance, but retreated when the police fired back.
Commission chairman Julius Isaac pointed out to Nicely that his statement had stated that he became aware that Henry was shot, when he heard a fellow policeman shout that he had been shot. But, that yesterday he was saying that he actually saw when Cpl Henry was shot. Nicely said that he both heard the shout and saw when the officer was hit and fell to the ground.
Responding to questions from Commissioner Garnett Brown, Nicely said Henry did not say anything to indicate why he decided to run across Spanish Town Road. But, he said he assumed that he ran because he saw gunmen coming from the opposite direction, Bread Lane, firing at the CMU men who had taken cover behind the Tivoli Court wall.
Constable Milton Henry of the Scene of Crime squad, said that on July 9 he swabbed four of 15 bodies which he found at the morgue at Madden's Funeral Parlour, for gunpowder, and turned over the evidence to the Forensic Lab.
The two women -- Violet Burobridge, a Spanish Town cashier and sister of slain JDF Lance Corporal Kevin Lawrence, and Paulette Porteous, nursing aide from Flankers, Montego Bay, mother of Corporal Mark Henry -- were civilian witnesses numbers five and six, but they only testified to identifying the bodies of their relatives at the morgue after they were killed.
The Commission has now heard from 49 witnesses, 43 of whom were either soldiers or policemen.
