‘It wasn’t me’

Western Bureau:

In the future, whenever boat captain Caval Smith, of Cave district, Westmoreland, hears Shaggy’s hit song, It Wasn’t Me, it should bring back bittersweet memories.

Last Friday, Smiths driver’s licence was found in a parking lot in proximity to where four alleged gunmen were killed in a blazing gunfight with the police in Negril, Westmoreland; and for several hours, it was believed that he was one of the slain gunmen.

However, Smith is very much alive and well, as while he was in the resort town at the time of the shooting, and actually saw it unfolding from a distance, it was verified by CCTV footage, which was examined by the police, that he was not involved.

“My car was parked around the back of Burger King car park so, after the shooting, I went around there to retrieve it. At that time, people were rushing around there to view the bodies and the guns the police had seized. I believe it was at that time that I lost my driver’s licence, which I thought I put in my car door pocket.

Smith said that after hanging around in the car park for a while, he drove off with his family, headed for Anchovy (St James), where he picked up his daughter, who was having her birthday, and drove on to Montego Bay to get a cake for her.

“While in Montego Bay, I got a call from my brother, who told me that news was going around that I was killed in a police shootout in Negril. After my brother hang up, my phone began blowing up with more people calling me to tell me that a video had gone viral with a picture of my driver’s licence and some guns,” said Smith.

He said that, out of curiosity, he rushed to his vehicle just to ensure that his driver’s licence was where he thought he had placed it. To his dismay, the money he had with the driver’s licence was there but the driver’s licence was missing.

Frightened by the situation, Smith said he called a police friend and explained the situation to him. The friend told him to head back to Negril and turn himself in to the police to have the matter rectified.

However, instead of going to the police station, Smith went back to the business place, where he was during the shooting, and to his absolute delight, they had a working CCTV system which could verify that he was there at the time of the shooting.

“I stayed at the business place and called the police and several senior officers, including Senior Superintendent Othniel Dobson, the police commander for Westmoreland, came,” said Smith. “They went through the CCTV footage in my presence and saw that I was there before the shooting, during the shooting, and after the shooting. They looked at the transaction that I did and the receipt that I got. I also gave them the password for my phone; and they went through it and gave it back to me.”

After the police completed their checks, Smith said he was told that they saw nothing to tie him to the incident and he was told he was free to go home. However, his driver’s licence was not returned as, according to him, the police said they wanted to check his driving record and vehicle ownership history.

“I was told by Mr Dobson to meet him at the police headquarters in Savanna-la-mar today (Sunday), but when I called him, he said he was out of town. I am now to meet him tomorrow (Monday) morning at 9 a.m.,” said Smith. “I just want to get over with this and clear my name as people are still posting photographs of me on the Internet; and others are making bad remarks about me ... I just want this situation cleared up so that I can move on with my life.”

While efforts to contact Dobson were unsuccessful, a reliable police source in Westmoreland confirmed Smith’s story, which he described as a most unfortunate situation, which should be cleared up after Smith meets Dobson.

In the shooting incident on Friday, the police intercepted a convoy of robbers, who, intelligence suggested, were on their way to rob a Beryllium cash-in-transit courier vehicle. In an ensuing gunbattle, four of the alleged robbers were killed and six firearms, including three rifles, seized.

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