Cop to face trial for allegedly lying to INDECOM

A police corporal accused of lying to the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) about a 2020 shooting in St Catherine is to stand trial in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on November 7.

A man’s house was said to have been damaged during the shooting incident.

Jason Bailey, who was assigned at the Area Headquarters, will be tried on a charge of wilfully making a false statement to the commissioner.

Another lawman, District Constable Vaughn Sutherland, who was similarly charged had appeared in court in June and was given a November 7 trial date.

Consequently, when Bailey made his first appearance in court on Monday, his attorney-at-law John Jacobs indicated that his client was charged with Sutherland and asked that the same trial date be fixed, and the prosecutor complied.

The two law enforcers were charged by INDECOM after they reportedly gave INDECOM statements that attempted to mislead the commission.

They were among a team of officers dispatched in Homestead, Spanish Town, on a targeted special operation on March 31.

During the operation, it is alleged that both men fired their weapons while in search of men in the community and damaged the man’s home.

According to INDECOM, the accused men had breached the Jamaica Constabulary Force Use of Force and Firearms Policy, as there was no lawful justification or absolute necessity for applying force or discharging their weapons during the planned operation.

But both men maintain that they did not discharge their weapons on the day of the operation.

However, ballistics evidence conducted on the recovered spent casings reportedly showed that the weapons that had been assigned to them were discharged.

Attorney-at-law Orville Morgan is representing Sutherland.