Attorneys outraged at alleged rogue cop’s detention at JDF HQ
Published:Wednesday | July 3, 2019 | 12:13 AMNickoy Wilson/Gleaner Writer
A defence attorney is questioning the basis on which her client, alleged rogue cop Constable Ramone Scott, is being held at Up Park Camp, the headquarters of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).
Scott and his co-accused Corporal Kirk Fraser were arrested and charged for their alleged involvement in the April 28 shooting incident in Chedwin Park, St Catherine, which led to the death of one member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and two civilians.
The matter was set to return to court yesterday, but experienced a delay because Scott was not brought to court, after which it was revealed that he was being held at the JDF’s headquarters.
“We were told that he was placed there for his security. I don’t know who has made threats in relation to him. We had made no complaints to them that we were not satisfied as to where he was being kept. And obviously now that he has been at the JDF, the section that he has been placed in, he’s not even supposed to be interacting even with persons who are in custody with him. So he is basically isolated,” attorney-at-law Althea Grant said yesterday as the matter was put off for tomorrow.
“The persons who he can speak with are the persons who are guarding him. Let me make it very clear, I cannot say he has been ill-treated by anyone at the Jamaica Defence Force. They have tried to help in every way in terms of the requests that have been made of them, but what is very painfully obvious to me is that they are basically just keeping him. It is not a matter they have an involvement in; he’s not a soldier. There is no connection between the Jamaica Defence Force and my client.”
Attorney-at-law Valerie Neita-Robertson, who is representing Fraser, said she was incensed.
“I am outraged and will not be gagged. In Jamaica, we have a Constitution and we have a system of justice that we protect. Now Mr Scott was not brought today because he’s in custody at the JDF. They took him there,” Neita-Robertson said. “The commissioner of police, by letter, ordered that he be kept there. Now, I’m learning that there is somebody in custody with him, who we suspect is placed there to try to urge Mr Scott to speak about the case.”
Presiding judge Carol Lawrence has also raised questions about Scott’s detention at the JDF headquarters.
Head of the JCF’s Corporate Communications Unit, Dahlia Garrick, was not able to provide an update up to news time.
The allegations
Constable Ramone Scott and Corporal Kirk Fraser are charged with three counts of illegal possession of firearm and ammunition and one count each of murder, manslaughter and shooting with intent.
Allegations are that shortly after midnight on April 28, Fraser, Scott, and a third policeman, identified as Corporal Rohan Williams, fatally shot St Catherine resident Sheldon ‘Junior Biggs’ Daley during a party at Chedwin Park, which is located on the outskirts of Spanish Town.
They then fled the scene in a Nissan wagon motor car.
According to reports, an off-duty policeman, who witnessed the incident, then chased the getaway car through the streets of the Old Capital, unaware that the men were his colleagues.
The high-speed gunfight ended when the Nissan motor car collided with another vehicle at the intersection of Brunswick Avenue and Job Lane.
When the dust cleared, Williams and Kevron Burrell, a visitor to the island and who was a passenger in that car, were pronounced dead.