Assistant Commissioner of Police Clifton Hicken yesterday said that when the police encountered the Rondell ‘Fine Man’ Rawlins gang at Christmas Falls in June, 2008, they were unable to pursue the men because they were in unfamiliar territory with limited resources.
“…I don’t think we had the type of resources and the equipment we needed to pursue that group…It’s a strange terrain. Resources are [deployed] if you know an area…you can’t pursue somebody and you don’t know an area, you’ll run into an ambush,” Hicken told Justice Donald Trotman, who is leading the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the deaths of eight miners, who police have said were killed by the gang.
Hicken, who testified at a public hearing yesterday, recalled the events of June 6th, 2008, at Christmas Falls, where the police had an encounter with four men suspected to be part of the Fine Man Gang, which resulted in one of the gang members being shot dead.