News Briefs

Cop weeps after freed of assault

District Constable Dawn Smikle, who was charged with the injury and assault of three colleagues during a fracas at the Old Harbour Police Station, cried tears of relief as she was freed last Friday following her trial in the St Catherine Parish Court.

Parish Judge Alicia McIntosh, in her summation, told the court that the evidence given by the three police witnesses was not consistent with the reports made about the injuries they were said to have sustained.

The judge told the accused, who was attached to the Jamaica Police College in Twickenham Park, St Catherine, that the allegations were not proven and that she was freed of all charges.

Having heard the judge's ruling, Smikle started to weep and had to be consoled by police personnel manning the court.

Smikle's appearance arose from an incident in 2018 in Old Harbour where she was accused of assaulting police colleagues in a disagreement over the seizure of a motor car.

Smikle was represented by attorney-at-law Vincent Wellesley.

- Rasbert Turner

Counselling targeted after police suicide

Counsellors are being deployed to offer comfort to bereaved colleagues and associates of Corporal Osbourne Ximines, who is suspected of committing suicide last Thursday.

Colleagues of Ximines have described his death as a shocker, adding that they had not seen signs of distress that forebode the tragedy.

Counselling support has been sought in collaboration with the Victim Support Unit, the Chaplaincy Unit, and the Jamaica Police Federation, Inspector Ishmael Williams told The Gleaner.

"What we have is a sad situation, so the counselling of colleagues at the station where he worked would form part of the collective thrust," Williams, who heads the Community Safety and Security unit in the St Catherine North Police Division, said.

Ximines, who was attached to the Gayle Police Station in the St Mary Division, was found about 9:20 a.m. on March 10 clutching his licensed Glock pistol at his home in Treadways, St Catherine. There was a gunshot wound to his head.

When contacted, Deputy Superintendent Dalian Clarke, who is leading the division in the absence of Superintendent Bobett Morgan-Simpson, who is on leave, said he was in a meeting and was unavailable. Further efforts to reach him failed.

But a senior officer who spoke with The Gleaner described the incident as painful. Ximines suffered injuries in a crash last year and was on sick leave.

“It’s not as if he was showing any sign of being under any pressure. I don’t know if other persons saw anything, but we never really saw anything that we could say he was showing signs,” said the cop.

“Based upon what has happened, persons are down. They have been seriously affected,” the cop added.

It is unclear how long Ximines had been stationed at Gayle or his length of service to the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Treadways, too, was heavy with grief last Thursday.

"I am very sad over the incident as he was a motivation to me," Darnell Blake said. "He was so quiet and mannerly. I am still asking myself what could have caused him to take his own life."

Investigations are being undertaken by the Linstead police.

- Rasbert Turner and Carl Gilchrist