Dorsette McCammon, accused of murdering a policeman, was unanimously acquitted last evening by a 12-member mixed jury in the High Court at Berbice.
In discharging McCammon, Justice Winston Patterson said, “You have been found not guilty for the capital offence. Be grateful to your counsel. You may leave. You are discharged.” He was quickly whisked out of the courtroom by his relatives, who waited for almost three hours for the jury to return the verdict. However, the mother of murdered policeman Micah Cort was inconsolable. In a muffled tone she said, “I am hurting all over again. I lost my son, and I have not received justice, but God is in charge.”
In an unsworn statement from the dock, McCammon told Justice Patterson and the mixed jury that he was at Esplanade Ground on the night of February 11, 2007 watching the soca show. “I was not near the Carib Bar. I was in front of the DDL bar. I did not have a gun. I did not shoot Cort. I did not know him. One night in January 2007, I was shot in my face at a wake house, by an unknown person. I am afraid of guns,” he said.
The accused, dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt and a pair of black pants, stood unaided in the dock, as he revealed to the Judge that “at about 01:30 hrs on the night in question, while in front of the DDL bar, I heard some explosions, which sounded like gunshots. I became afraid and started running, however whilst doing so, I felt something hard hit me at the back. I realized I was shot. I fell to the ground. I became unconscious.”
McCammon said too, he did not have a gun whilst running, and recalled regaining consciousness at the hospital where he was being treated. He recalled being unable to speak, and denied telling Inspector Paul that he shot Cort, because the latter had done so to him at a wake house. The accused who was bedridden for 18 months said that the bullet is still lodged in his spine.
State Counsel Fabayo Azore told the court that the two men had a scuffle and afterward Dorsette was seen pointing a gun toward the on-duty policeman. Four shots rang out, and the accused was seen running away. Azore narrated that on seeing what had happened, a licensed firearm holder discharged shots and the accused fell and a gun was found next to him. Both wounded men were taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital where they received treatment but Cort succumbed to his injuries.
Assistant Superintendent of Police Terrence Paul recalled putting the allegation to McCammon, who was a patient at the New Amsterdam Hospital. The witness told the court that the accused, under caution, replied, “Cort shoot me at a wake house, and I shoot he back.” Paul stated earlier that he had gone to the New Amsterdam Hospital Emergency Unit at 03:00hrs, where the accused was admitted as a patient on February 11, 2007.
According to the witness, who was the divisional inspector attached to Central Police Station in Berbice, on visiting the hospital the accused appeared to be normal and was responding to questions asked by the doctor. Three hours later, the witness recalled escorting the wounded policeman via an ambulance to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation where he succumbed to injuries.
Questioned by Defence Counsel Mursulene Bacchus, Paul said he did not write the accuser’s oral statement, nor did he request writing material from the medical staff. However, on being shown his deposition which recorded him telling the magistrate, “I never made a written note of what the accused told me up to this date,” the witness adamantly stated he never uttered those words to the Magistrate although he later confessed that he did not alter or change anything from his deposition which was re-read to him.
With respect to the oral statement made by the accused, the police officer said, “it was a short one, which I thought would not be forgotten.”
He agreed with the suggestion that he wanted to build a strong case against the accused, and confessed that at 03:00hrs on February 11, 2007, he did not have a written statement implicating the accused, although he was familiar with the Judges Rules. The witness said no instruction was given by him for the gun to be dusted for fingerprints.
He also acknowledged the accused was in police custody from the night of the incident until he was charged, however his hands were not examined at any stage although Central Police Station was equipped with a laboratory and technicians.
Meanwhile McCammon, the last of four children and his mother’s only son, was described as a notorious individual in the New Amsterdam area. It was related that the man has had run-ins with the law. He was shot around 11.40 pm on January 25, 2007.
This newspaper had been told at the time that the now-freed man was playing a game of dominoes when a lone gunman who had a cap pulled over his face walked up and pointed a gun to his head. McCammon, who apparently did not notice the gun, raised his head at the same time the gunman pulled the trigger. As a result he was shot in the left jaw.
