Jamaican parents demand answers in daughter’s shooting death

Washington, DC:

Radcliffe Manyan Sr and his wife Sherene who hail from Duhaney Park in Kingston, and now reside in Washington DC, are demanding answers regarding how their daughter, a library police officer, was shot and killed while on a training course on August 4.

Officer Maurica Manyan, a 25-year-old mother of a four-year-old son, was employed as a library police officer. She was shot and killed during a training session conducted by a retired officer at the Anacostia Library in DC.

DC Police Chief Robert Contee said officers were called to the shooting a little after 3:30 p.m. when they found Manyan unconscious and with a gunshot wound.

There was baton-training session conducted by a retired Metropolitan Police Department officer in the lower level of the library. Contee said at some point, the retired officer, identified as 58-year-old Jesse Porter, fired a shot that hit Manyan.

It is believed that he was permitted to unlawfully enter a government building with a fully loaded firearm, which was allegedly used to shoot Manyan moments before she was due to pick up her son from daycare.

Porter was subsequently charged with involuntary manslaughter and was free to go home the day following the shooting.

Members of Manyan’s family said that they have a host of questions about the events that led to Maurica’s death.

“What happened to Officer Manyan on August 4, 2022, was senseless, grossly negligent and frankly bizarre,” said Chelsea Lewis, attorney for the Manyan family.

“Justice for Maurica has not been achieved with the arrest of Jesse Porter. Her family had to learn via the news that the individual who shot and killed their loved one was released in less than 24 hours. Porter was treated as though he simply had a broken tail-light, rather than someone who took the life of a mother, daughter, and sister,” the attorney said.

“While we are not quick to rush to judgment, one can infer that Mr Porter’s former position as a police lieutenant of the same department that responded to the shooting may have been a factor in the white-glove treatment that has been provided to someone who walked into a government building with a loaded weapon and killed a mother and law enforcement officer,” added Lewis.

“We believe Jesse Porter was contracted by the Library Police Department to facilitate a training programme that did not require a firearm. Based on initial reports, we believe that he was the only one who had a weapon that should have never been allowed in the building in the first place. His defense seems to be that he was ‘joking’ when aiming a live weapon at Officer Manyan, but unholstering a loaded weapon, pointing it at an unarmed police officer and pulling the trigger is certainly not a joke or a mistake,” the family attorney said.

This is not a situation where a gun fell out of a bag and misfired. We believe this is a situation where a man willfully raised his weapon and caused the wrongful death of Officer Manyan.”

Lewis alleges that to date the District of Columbia has not contacted the Manyan family to offer condolences for Maurica’s death.

“The family believes that the District of Columbia failed to provide Officer Manyan with a safe work environment, and we intend to obtain the answers that the Manyan family so desperately needs and deserves. We know one thing for sure, if the District of Columbia, Jesse Porter, his consulting company, and the Anacostia Neighborhood Library would have followed basic safety and security protocols, Officer Maurica Manyan would be alive today.”

– Derrick Scott