Taxi driver hospitalised after being shot by policeman in St Thomas granted bail

Bail was granted on Wednesday in absentia to 35-year-old taxi driver Devon Webb who was shot by a policeman four times this month at the Hope Road Transport Centre in Morant Bay, St Thomas.

Attorney-at-law Hensley Williams made the bail application for Webb who has been hospitalised since the incident.

Allegations are that Webb used a machete to hit a policeman and attempted to disarm him when he was shot four times by the cop.

Webb is charged with possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of ammunition, and assault.

Williams, in making the bail application in the St Thomas Parish Court, submitted that Webb was unarmed when he was shot.

Williams also argued that there was no support for the policeman's assertion that Webb had a machete.

“It is a simple case of the police acting with unprovoked aggression,” Williams submitted.

He implored Parish Judge Sahai Whittingham-Maxwell to grant bail to the accused because he had no previous conviction and his antecedent was good.

Webb was granted bail in the sum of $200,000 with surety and is to attend court on October 23.

It is alleged that on the day of the incident the policeman who shot Webb was driving a marked service vehicle which hit the door of the accused man's taxi, damaging it.

When Webb came out of his vehicle, he was allegedly boxed by the policeman.

He fell to the ground and was shot in the leg, arm and twice in the back.

Webb was taken to hospital where he was admitted.

- Barbara Gayle

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