Teen killed by lawmen was on police radar
Published:Wednesday | May 25, 2011 | 12:00 AM
The teenager for whose murder four policemen have been on trial since May 2 was charged with illegal possession of firearm and picked up on numerous occasions by the police.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Michael Simpson made the disclosures yesterday under cross-examination by attorney Jacqueline Samuels-Brown.
Last week, Senator Aundré Franklin testified that on September 28, 2007, he witnessed the shooting of 18-year-old André Thomas and went to the Grants Pen Police Station to make a report to Simpson.
Though Franklin had said he did not refer to Thomas as 'Kunte', during cross-examination Simpson said the senator reported to him that "one Matterhorn has just shot Kunte along Grants Pen Road".
On trial in the Home Circuit Court are corporals Noel Bryan, who is also called 'Matterhorn', and Philip Dunstan, and constables Clayton Fearon and Omar Miller.
Franklin's testimony
Franklin had also testified that he saw three policemen around the deceased, who had his hands in the air. Bryan was not one of the three policemen, he said.
Simpson said he did not make up the name 'Kunte' and put it in his statement. He said it was Franklin who called that name and that he was familiar with the name 'Kunte' in the process of his work as a police officer in the Grants Pen community. He said he was never in the habit of allowing politicians to come and deal with police issues in the Grants Pen area.
Simpson said in his evidence in chief that when Franklin made the report to him, he went to the Cruiser Gully Bank on Grants Pen Road and protected the scene by placing policemen there so that it could not be tampered with.
The Crown is alleging at the trial before Justice Donald McIntosh and the 12-member jury that Thomas was shot and killed in cold blood. The police reported that Thomas pointed a gun at them and they fired in self-defence.