RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Police Dispute Documentary on Killings

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, Sep 28 2001 (IPS) - Jamaican authorities say “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) look at police killings aired here this week and due for international broadcast next week, could compromise court hearings into the cases it highlights.

The cases examined in the documentary also form the basis of an Amnesty International (AI) campaign to highlight human rights abuses and alleged extra judicial killings by local police. With 140 people killed by police last year, AI says Jamaica has one of the highest rates of police killings in the world.

“The rates are too high and there is no excuse for this,” Francis Forbes, the police chief, agrees. He adds, however, that the figures need to be weighed against the level of criminal killings. More than 800 people have been killed so far this year, many of them during bouts of political and gang violence.

The one-hour documentary examines, among others, the Mar. 14 police killings of seven males aged 15 to 22 in the town of Braeton. The victims died in questionable circumstances, according to the report. Local officials, however, say the film is biased as it relies heavily on the opinions of friends, family members, and witnesses to the incidents and portrays Forbes as reserved and Renato Adams, controversial chief of the Crime Management Unit (CMU), as refusing to comment.

Three of the highlighted cases are now before the courts; the public prosecutor has dismissed one case for lack of evidence. Human rights campaigners champion the film as highlighting the problem of police brutality, but some officials and legal sources say it could derail ongoing litigation.

Maurice Goodgame, head of the Police Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI), says jurors could be unduly influenced by the film’s speculation and repetition of what he maintains were inaccuracies first aired by local media.

“Several things were said that are totally false”, he says.

The BSI handles investigations into all shootings, deaths and corruption allegations involving members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

The film purports to interview people who saw the incident in Braeton even though police had found no such witnesses at the time, he says by way of example. The BSI had difficulties collecting evidence because all witnesses including the newspaper reporter who wrote about the incident said they only heard the happenings from their beds.

The BBC, however, says it spoke to witnesses who reportedly saw the police with the men before they were killed. Some reported that police had tampered with the crime scene and one man displayed four pieces of skull bones reportedly taken from the house in which the men were killed.

While denying claims that the police failed to secure the crime scene, Goodgame says some residents had already gained access by the time the BSI got to examine it. He was, however, critical of gloveless policemen who handled the guns reportedly found on site.

Yvonne McCalla-Sobers, of the non-governmental Families Against State Terrorism, defends the BBC programme. “If it makes one person aware that not all the boys were criminals, it would have been good,” she says.

Jamaica’s Broadcasting Commission is examining the documentary to determine whether its content breach legal standards on accuracy, balance, and defamation. But spokesperson Jacqui Jackson says the Commission has so far not received any complaints.

Goodgame says he is concerned that, coupled with AI’s April release of a report by Danish pathologist Peter Leth, the film could short-circuit the high profile ‘Braeton Seven’ case. Leth came to Jamaica to observe the autopsy of the seven men. In a report presented at a public meeting in Kingston, he said he had concluded that the elite Crime Management Unit had executed the seven victims.

James Forbes, head of the Constabulary Communications Network, describes the documentary as imbalanced and “designed as an emotional message”. Coming on the heels of Leth’s pronouncements, he says, the film could move lawyers to seek acquittals for defendants in the Braeton Seven case, which is in its pre-trial phase, as well as those charged with two other killings, to seek acquittal.

The details of the Braeton Seven killings are in dispute, with police saying the victims died in a shoot-out with police. Director of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry sent the case to the Coroners Court Jul. 20 so it could find additional evidence that could determine whether criminal charges should be brought against the police officers involved.

The inquest was postponed and now is scheduled to begin Nov. 1. Suzanne Goffe, of Jamaicans for Justice, says the delays could be damaging to the case against the police and to public confidence, as many people already say they believe the case will not be heard before next year.

Already some witnesses are moving on with their lives, McCalla- Sobers adds, and one woman has since moved overseas.

Last month, a Kingston Coroners Court found that four policemen should face charges for the death of Patrick Genius, who died after being shot in the head by police in December 1999, under what are officially termed “disputed circumstances”.

According to Coroner Andrea Pettigrew-Collins, the Braeton Seven postponement was forced by the courts’ preoccupation with hearings into the deaths of 27 killed during gun battles between police and gangs in West Kingston Jul. 7.

Adams’s CMU is a common factor in both the West Kingston and Braeton hearings, prompting AI to call for investigations into the elite unit’s operations.