Samp­son Nan­ton & Renu­ka Singh

The fam­i­ly of one of the three men shot dead by po­lice in Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant on Sat­ur­day, is call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the killing.

CCTV footage raised ques­tions about what re­al­ly hap­pened, af­ter Ja­cobs was seen com­ing out of the ve­hi­cle with his hands up in the air, turn­ing around twice in front of sev­er­al heav­i­ly armed of­fi­cers, con­vers­ing with them at gun­point, and then re­turn­ing to the ve­hi­cle, just be­fore the of­fi­cers opened fire.

It was the day of he was cel­e­brat­ing his 38th birth­day and as far as his fa­ther is con­cerned, his killing was mur­der.

“The video was very lu­cid. He came out with his hands up in the air and he spin around and he men­tioned to them to­day is his birth­day and he (was) tak­ing a drop to go out the road to get some­thing for his birth­day,” Ster­ling Ja­cobs told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

He con­tin­ued, “They told him go back in­to the car and all the oth­er guys had their hands out the car in plain sight. It’s a bla­tant mur­der what I saw there…what tran­spired yes­ter­day on his birth­day.”

The killings came the same day that Allen Mose­ly, 32, an of­fi­cer at­tached to the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) was shot dead in Mor­vant.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said the two were not linked and a state­ment by the Po­lice Ser­vice said Ja­cobs pulled a gun on an of­fi­cer when he re­turned to the car.

The CCTV video that be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing Sat­ur­day evening, was too dis­tant to sup­port or dis­cred­it the po­lice state­ment.

How­ev­er, the man from whose home the video was shot, vouched for Ja­cobs dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

An­tho­ny Bartholomew, the head coach of the Mal­ick Sec­ondary School’s foot­ball team, in­sist­ed Ja­cob was not in­volved in a life of crime.

“I know Ja­cob all my life. All Ja­cob does do is drink he lil al­co­hol and en­ter­tain. Ja­cob knows noth­ing about hold­ing no gun. If I did come here and my footage show­ing is crim­i­nal die here, me ain’t giv­ing no­body footage... me ain’t have no time with that. (But) Ja­cob was a good per­son,” he said.

He de­scribed him as lov­ing and non-vi­o­lent.

“I just want to clear Joel name. Joel gone but I want the world to know don’t brand him as no gun­man or no thief. So all who hear­ing and feel­ing and spec­u­lat­ing that it’s Cale­do­nia and stereo­typ­ing Cale­do­nia…Joel wasn’t in no crime.”

Ja­cobs’ sis­ter Can­dice broke down in tears as she de­scribed the death of the fa­ther-of-two.

“He point and said I liv­ing right there. The boss, to­day is meh birth­day. I just go­ing down the road to get a bot­tle of rum and me and meh brethren and them will come back to drink,” she said.

“What I am ask­ing is for our Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to make a state­ment on this. We want an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Ja­cobs’ moth­er Karen put her hands in the air as she too demon­strat­ed how he alight­ed the ve­hi­cle.

“He put up his hands stat­ing he (the po­lice of­fi­cer) is free to do what­ev­er. He didn’t mean for them to shoot him in his back and then for an­oth­er po­lice of­fi­cer to shoot him three-four times. He was in­no­cent. I don’t have a prob­lem with po­lice of­fi­cers do­ing their work but do it prop­er­ly. Take him to the po­lice sta­tion and ques­tion him,” she cried.

PCA launch­es in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to po­lice killings

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) has launched an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the shoot­ing.

The PCA said its civil­ian in­ves­ti­ga­tors will con­duct an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion on the mat­ter and then for­ward its find­ings to the Au­thor­i­ty.

“Up­on re­ceipt of the said re­port, the Au­thor­i­ty shall make an as­sess­ment and form an opin­ion as to whether there is suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to sup­port a rec­om­men­da­tion for pros­e­cu­tion and/ or the in­sti­tu­tion of dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings,” the PCA said in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day.

The PCA al­so sought to as­sure the pub­lic that the “due process” will be fol­lowed.

The PCA said that part of its man­date is to en­sure that no po­lice of­fi­cer “acts above the Rule of Law”

The PCA is al­so call­ing on any eye­wit­ness­es to come for­ward and guar­an­teed that all in­for­ma­tion would be treat­ed with the strictest con­fi­dence.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith on the mat­ter and asked whether he saw the video on so­cial me­dia.

The Com­mis­sion­er did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages.