‘SHOTS RANG OUT’
Senior politician testifies he saw police shoot unarmed man during operation
Published:Wednesday | January 21, 2026 | 12:09 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
A senior politician took the stand in the murder trial of six policemen yesterday testifying that he saw a police officer shoot at one of the now-deceased men after the man exited a vehicle with his hands raised and attempted to flee during a 2013 police operation along Arcadia Drive in St Andrew.
The January 12, 2013, incident resulted in the fatal shooting of Matthew Lee, Mark Allen, and Ucliffe Dyer.
“The man would have jumped over the wall. But immediately, as he put up his hands and came out of the car, he was shouted at, and he started to run, and shots started to ring out.
“The officer closest to the wall made his way to the wall and started to fire over the wall. The officer at the front ran into the yard,” the witness told the seven-member jury in the Home Circuit Court.
EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY
Testifying before Justice Sonia Bertram Linton, the witness said that from his apartment window, he clearly observed that “the man in the red shirt pointed no weapon at anyone. Neither did the man threaten anyone”.
He recalled that a ‘Kingfish’ police vehicle later arrived and an officer wearing a beige vest exited and fired shots in the direction of a man in a white shirt who was on the ground. That officer then ran towards the front passenger seat of a Mitsubishi Outlander SUV.
“The officer in the beige [vest] would have pulled the Indian man out of the car. There were continuous shots being fired in the yard, and then it sounded like there were shots being fired from all over – from the police, all over,” he said.
“But to me, when the officer came out of the Kingfish, that man in the white shirt appeared to have already been dead,” he added.
The witness said that when he first saw the man in the white shirt, he had been sitting on the ground with officers pointing weapons at him, but after hearing an explosion, he appeared dead.
He also said he saw the man of Indian descent dragged from the vehicle and later observed him lying on the ground, motionless.
CHAOTIC SCENE
Led in evidence by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Kathyann Pyke, the witness described the scene as fast-moving and chaotic, involving seven armed officers, including two who arrived in the Kingfish vehicle. He said that before its arrival, five officers were already present, all carrying what appeared to be M16 rifles.
According to the witness, the man in the red shirt exited the rear passenger door of the vehicle with his hands raised and made no threatening gesture.
He also testified about the man of Indian descent: “The first time I saw him, he had what looked like car papers in his hand … and definitely not in an attacking posture.
“The second time I saw him, he was in the car. He was shaking, rocking back and forth, and then I saw when he was pulled out of the car. At no time did I see him do anything attacking or threatening,” the witess added, noting that he did not see the man with anything in his hand.
The witness also said his view of the incident from his apartment window was unobstructed.
“There was nothing blocking my view,” he testified. “I could clearly see into the street and into the yard at all times.”
After the shooting stopped, he said officers loaded the bodies into a pickup truck.
“They took up the man in the red shirt first, then the man who was on the ground in the white shirt, and then the man of Indian descent.”
He estimated the entire episode lasted about five minutes.
The trial continues today with cross-examination of the witness.
The witness further told the court that after the bodies were removed, five officers left the scene in a van, while the Kingfish vehicle remained positioned across the road, blocking access from Barbican.
Earlier in the proceedings, the witness told the court that following the incident, he had a discussion with his partner, made notes about what he had seen, and penned a letter to the Independent Commission of Investigations.
During the proceedings, defence attorney Hugh Wildman raised several objections, at one point arguing that the prosecution was improperly cross-examining its own witness instead of leading the evidence.
The trial will continue tomorrow, with the witness undergoing cross-examination.
He also objected to some questions, noting that they were in breach of the rule of self-corroboration.
Justice Bertram Linton allowed the prosecution to continue while cautioning that the questioning must remain confined to the witness’s observations.