The ammunition used to kill the three men shot dead at Linden on July 18, 2012 is used by the police for hunting and not for controlling public disorder.
This is according to a security source, who says that the Guyana Police Force should launch an immediate investigation into the origin of the copper-coated buckshot #00 pellets, which were removed from the bodies of Allan Lewis, Shemroy Bouyea and Ron Somerset.
At the conclusion of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the incident, which also left others with serious injuries, there were more questions than answers, including how the ammunition came to be used since the force had discontinued using it at least up to 2005.
Several attempts to reach police commissioner (ag) Leroy Brumell for a comment on the issue were futile.
The security source, who has experience spanning several decades, said that the standard ammunition used for ranks on riot control duty was and still is the 12-gauge cartridge, #4 and #6. The #6, the source said, is the preferred choice.
“The 00 shot or buckshot was issued for hunting by policemen on patrol in the distant areas in the interior and was not used for controlling public disorder,” he explained, while noting that police who testified during the COI were more than likely ignorant of the facts surrounding this type of ammunition and its use by the force.
The source also pointed out that seeing that the COI had found the police responsible for the shooting and ultimately the death of the three men and the injury to others, the force should have already started an investigation to determine who issued the ranks with the ammunition, knowing that it is not the standard police practice to use them in protests, the source said.
The source also said that the investigation also should look at the fact that the post mortem results “presented a different type of ammunition from the type known to be in possession of the police, which is the plain lead type.”
Another security source told this newspaper that the police have the buckshot ammunition in stock and it is being stored at Eve Leary. The source disputed recent reports that this type of ammunition was destroyed. “If they saying that this thing destroy, then where is the record?” the source said, while adding that it could be a case that the ranks while collecting ammunition before heading to Linden accidentally picked up the buckshot ammunition.
The source noted that the copper coating may have been related either to a “manufacturer’s preference of a modern innovation.”
“Such an occurrence ought to have triggered an investigation as to where and how such an ammunition was issued to policemen and who were the ranks in receipt of such an issue,” the security source said, while noting that the police seem quick “to rely on their denials that they did not shoot without examining the realities of their own conduct.”
During an interview, one of the two local members of the Linden COI former Chancellor Cecil Kennard told Stabroek News that he had noted the many comments that the commission did not say who shot and killed the men. Kennard explained that the “evidence did not point to a specific person.”
He stressed that the commission did find that the police were responsible for the shooting. “The evidence we had did not point to a specific policeman,” he said, while adding that the ballistics expert was handed different buckshot (one that is lead) ammunition. He said that they found that up to September last year, the force was in possession of the buckshot and the possibility exists “that they still had it and used it on the day of the incident.”
Attorney Nigel Hughes, who is representing the relatives of the slain trio, called for an immediate investigation into who was in possession of the buckshot and who authorised its use.
The COI report stated that the metal fragments recovered from the bodies of Somerset, Lewis and Bouyea at the time of the post-mortem examination were identified by the ballistics expert as lead pellets, buckshot #00. However, the evidence from the police, who issued the arms to police officers who were deployed to the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge on July 18, is that no such ammunition was issued to anyone, the report said, while adding that the evidence is that buckshot #00 has not been used by the police for some time.
It was noted that it was against this background that several questions could be raised including: Were the three persons shot and killed by the same person? Or two or three persons who unlawfully had that type of ammunition with them?
The report said that examination of the Arms Book in which the type of weapon and ammunition assigned to persons are entered does not disclose any such ammunition being issued. But the commissioners noted that the entries in that book cannot be relied on as it contained numerous irregularities.
Addressing the shooting, the commission pointed out that an examination of the relevant evidence revealed that Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Patrick Todd and Constable Colin Rodney were the only police ranks that discharged shots from shotguns. The report recalled that Dr Nehaul Singh, the government pathologist, testified that on conducting the post-mortem examinations, he handed over the shells he recovered from the bodies of the three deceased to Inspector Leroy Alexander who, in turn, sent them to Sgt Eon Jackson to be analysed.
Sgt Jackson testified that he received three envelopes, in each of which was a container with 00 buckshot cartridges with copper-coating. During his testimony, he said that in his 17-year experience he was aware that this type of cartridge was not used by the police.
He had, however, overheard his superior mention to Dr [Mark] Robinson that in the year 2005, the police ceased the use of 00 buckshot cartridges. Dr Robinson was the independent ballistics expert who was brought in from the UK.
Senior Superintendent Linden Alves testified that he was a member of the Tactical Services Unit for over twenty years and during that time the Unit did not use 12-gauge 00 buckshot pellets in relation to crowd control.
Dr Robinson mentioned that the police provided him with three rounds of ammunition, two of which are in current use and the third had not been used since 2005. According to him these were numbers 4, 6 and 00 cartridges with the numbers four and six being bird pellets – small pellets, and the ‘00’ being different to the ones which were found in the bodies of the deceased. He said that while they were all buckshot, the exhibits recovered from the deceased were pellets which had a light coating of copper, whereas the ones he received from the police were simply lead.
“This begs the question: if ‘00’ buckshot cartridges were not being used by the police since 2005, or for over 20 years, how is it that the police were able to provide a sample of the 00 cartridge to Dr Robinson? Does this not show that the police still have ‘00’ in stock?’ the report asked. “The ‘00’ sample which was provided did not have copper-coating. The pellets which were extracted from the deceased’s body had a light coating of copper.
The question arises whether the sample produced to Dr Robinson represented merely a sample of a ‘00’ cartridge in general or rather a sample of the specific kind of `00’ cartridge which the police had in their stock. Is it that the police had a mixture of `00’ cartridges which included ‘00’ cartridges with a light coating of copper such as which killed the deceased?” the report further asked.
