– Greene
Assistant Superinten-dent Ivelaw Murray was involved in a “close relationship” with Constable Kevin Shepherd who he shot before taking his own life on Sunday morning, Commissioner of Police Henry Greene says.
“It is a very sad development and as I said in the wake of our anniversary, they were two very sad cases. I don’t want to pronounce as to exactly why the shooting took place. But my information seems to suggest that there was a very close relationship between the officer (Murray) and the young man (Shepherd),” Greene told the media during a presentation of appointments to Cadet Officers yesterday.
The commissioner said that he’d been told that Shepherd routinely drove Murray’s car. The Assistant Superintendent, Greene said he’d learnt, also fed Shepherd; provided him with food supplies and even stayed at his house every now and then. These, the commissioner said, were indicators of the sort of relationship the two shared.
On the night of the shocking murder/suicide, Greene said, a Police Corporal went upstairs to the barrack rooms when he heard the arguing. Murray, according to him, told the Corporal that he and Shepherd had a close relationship and he (Murray) then asked the younger man to verify this.
“The corporal has given us a statement to that effect that is why he went back downstairs. Close relationship he said, close relationship,” Greene reported.
He subsequently explained that: “It is inappropriate for an officer to go to that extent… That’s inappropriate conduct. There is no law that stops you from having that sort of thing. What we will do is call the officer in, speak with him and say to him, look this is inappropriate.
Unfortunately in this case it was not observed, it was not noticed…for some reason it never came to high command’s notice and therefore we can do little about it.”
Currently, the Police Commissioner said that the force is having “a bad season” and is not happy about what is happening. Several things, like training and mentor programmes, will be improved and done continuously to address such issues. “We recently reprinted the when you may fire doctrine and the minimum force doctrine,” Greene told reporters. “We are doing training now with all the ranks on patrol about when you may fire again…we have revised the order about the issuing of firearm, to go to scenes (where) there are no perceived threat or there is no report of firearm being used. We have reinforced all of that most of those things are there. They have been there for years.”
In a press release on Sunday police had reported that “the two ranks were earlier involved in an argument in the Barrack Room at Springlands Police Station. Later a gunshot was heard coming from the Barrack Room and the Subordinate Officer in charge of Traffic at the station ran to see what had happened.
As the Subordinate Officer was going up the stairs leading to the Barrack Room, he saw Assistant Superinten-dent Murray hurriedly coming down the stairs. He enquired from the Assistant Superintendent what had happened but he got no response and Murray left the station compound.”
Shepherd was discovered dead in the barrack room and at about 3.25 am Murray was found dead in his living room. He lived a short distance from the station and his service revolver was found in his hand.
