FOUR POLICEMEN were yesterday arrested and charged with murder in connection with the shooting of two persons in St. Catherine last year.
Granville Gause, acting commissioner of police and head of the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI), said that three of the four corporals Rudolph Rhoden, Dwight Roberts and Special Constable Linton Pasco, all of the Special Anti-Crime Task Force (SACTF) were charged with the murder of a 15-year-old. Jason Smith, a student of Eltham High School, St. Catherine, was shot and killed on July 9, 2003.
The fourth policeman, Detective Corporal Mark Richards of the Ferry Police Station, has been charged with the controversial killing of a 23-year-old taxi driver, Andrew Wilson, in October last year.
The three men charged with Smith's murder were each offered bail in the sum of $200,000 and are to return to court on Friday, June 18. Richards, who is facing an additional charge, arising out of another incident, was also granted bail in the sum of $200,000 and is to return to court on Tuesday, June 1.
Reports into the case of young Jason are that members of the now defunct Crime Management Unit (CMU) and the SACTF, were conducting an operation in Spanish Town when they saw two males travelling on bicycles along Wellington Street in the town.
Their action aroused suspicion of the police and when accosted the men pulled firearms and opened fire, according to police reports. During a shoot-out both men were hit. The police version of the story was challenged by residents, some of whom claimed that the men were riding without lights. The shooting prompted residents to stage a mass demonstration in Spanish Town.
In the case of Wilson, the taxi driver, he was returning from a funeral when he was killed by the police along Fair Field Avenue in Spanish Town.
