DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

*Please use lo­go for this case called - Cops on Tri­al *

A case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty.

This was the sce­nario de­scribed by spe­cial State pros­e­cu­tor Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, to ex­plain the cir­cum­stances which led to the deaths of friends Alana Dun­can, Ker­ron Ec­cles, and Abi­gail John­son, who were shot and killed by a group of po­lice of­fi­cers al­most 12 years ago. 

Pre­sent­ing his open­ing ad­dress at the start of Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, and An­to­nio Ra­madin’s tri­al for the triple mur­der be­fore Jus­tice Car­la Brown-An­tonie at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Pe­ter­son claimed that Dun­can’s boyfriend Shum­ba James was the of­fi­cers’ ac­tu­al tar­get. 

He said that he and State pros­e­cu­tors would lead ev­i­dence that hours be­fore the trio was shot at the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore on Ju­ly 22, 2011, PC Singh was con­tact­ed by two se­nior of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion, who in­di­cat­ed that they were in the process of build­ing a case against James, who at the time was want­ed for ques­tion­ing in re­la­tion to three mur­ders. 

“He (James) was no al­tar or choir boy. He is no saint. He was clear­ly known to the le­gal sys­tem,” Pe­ter­son said. 

He claimed that James would tes­ti­fy that he bor­rowed a Nis­san B15 from his broth­er and took Dun­can to the St Mary’s Po­lice Post where he had to re­port three times week­ly as part of his bail con­di­tions re­gard­ing a pend­ing case he had be­fore the court. 

Pe­ter­son stat­ed that af­ter com­plet­ing the process, James and Dun­can vis­it­ed sev­er­al near­by bars where they met with Dun­can and Ec­cles. 

He claimed that when they were leav­ing one of the bars to pur­chase bar­be­cue in Bar­rack­pore, James left in a car with two child­hood friends, while John­son, Dun­can, and Ec­cles fol­lowed in his broth­er’s car.

Pe­ter­son said that while dri­ving through Bar­rack­pore, James and his friends claimed that they saw a group of armed po­lice of­fi­cers, who were parked in an au­to parts busi­ness, open fire on his broth­er’s ve­hi­cle as they drove by. 

Pe­ter­son al­so not­ed that the State would lead ev­i­dence from a man, who was pur­chas­ing a meal near where the shoot­ing took place and wit­nessed what tran­spired. 

He said that the man heard one of the of­fi­cers say “Shum­ba you dead tonight” be­fore he and his col­leagues opened fire on the ve­hi­cle. 

Pe­ter­son stat­ed that the man claimed that af­ter the shoot­ing stopped, he heard one of the women in the ve­hi­cle shout “Stop shoot­ing I com­ing out of the car” be­fore an­oth­er of­fi­cer di­rect­ed his col­leagues to “Shoot again”. 

“The State is al­leg­ing that as po­lice of­fi­cers of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, who swore to pro­tect and serve, they mur­dered Abi­gail John­son, Alana Dun­can, and Ker­ron Ec­cles,” Pe­ter­son said. 

Pe­ter­son al­so gave a de­tailed ac­count of the firearms and am­mu­ni­tion the of­fi­cers were is­sued when they start­ed their shift hours be­fore the shoot­ing. 

He en­cour­aged the 12-mem­ber ju­ry and five al­ter­nates to put aside their prej­u­dices and de­ter­mine the case by dis­pas­sion­ate­ly analysing the ev­i­dence they would hear in the next few months. 

“All the pros­e­cu­tion is ask­ing you to do is hear­ken to the ev­i­dence and re­turn with a true ver­dict in ac­cor­dance with the ev­i­dence,” Pe­ter­son said. 

“Leave your prej­u­dices at home,” he added. 

The tri­al be­gan with six al­ter­na­tives but dur­ing yes­ter­day’s hear­ing, one had to re­place a mem­ber of the ju­ry, who was dis­charged by Jus­tice Brown-An­toine due to her vi­tal role as an em­ploy­ee of a na­tion­al com­mis­sion.

Af­ter Pe­ter­son’s open­ing ad­dress, he pre­sent­ed the ev­i­dence from a rel­a­tive of each of the trio, who iden­ti­fied their bod­ies at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James be­fore au­top­sies were per­formed. 

A po­lice of­fi­cer, who was tasked with tak­ing pho­tographs of the crime scene al­most a month af­ter the shoot­ing, al­so tes­ti­fied. 

The of­fi­cers are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Is­rael Khan, SC, Ul­ric Sker­ritt, and Aris­sa Ma­haraj, while Giselle Fer­gu­son-Heller is ap­pear­ing along­side Pe­ter­son for the State. 

The tri­al is sched­uled to re­sume this morn­ing.