A man who police say pointed a gun at a constable outside of a Burger King restaurant has been freed of the charge after the prosecution took too much time to locate the case file.
Jason Gonsalves, 27, called ‘Jason Burnette’, who had been granted bail by Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus after the Court heard the prosecutor needed time to locate his file, was on Monday freed of the charge. He was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition while not being a licensed gun owner.
The father of one denied that on June 20, at Camp and Regent streets, Georgetown, he had a Taurus revolver without being the holder of firearm licence at the time. He was also charged with being in possession of five live rounds of ammunition at the same location and on the same day.
According to the police prosecutor, the police, who were acting on information received, went to the location in front of Burger King on Camp Street and saw two men acting in a suspicious manner. He said that the police approached the men but then they pushed their hands into their pants and pulled out something, pointed it at a police officer and the police responded to the movement. He said that the police discharged a round and the men ran off in different directions. One of the suspects was apprehended on Charlotte Street, while Gonsalves allegedly escaped. The prosecutor added that the police retrieved footage from the restaurant and in the video one of the men was seen putting the gun and ammunition in the garbage bin there. The police then retrieved the items.
His then attorney Siand Dhurjon told the court that his client was at home with his pregnant fiancée when the incident was alleged to have occurred. He said that following reports on social media, which identified him as one of the suspects, Gonsalves contacted him and surrendered to the police.
Following the first hearing in June, the man was remanded and then released on bail after his new attorney, Dexter Todd, made an application for bail. The court later heard that the prosecution was having difficulty locating the file. Todd then asked that the Magistrate dismisses the charge because the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed. A new date was, however, given but when the matter was called on Monday, the prosecutor asked for time to reconstruct the file.
However, Principal Magistrate Isaacs-Marcus told the court that the matter was fixed for a report on the file and given that the prosecutor was again asking for time to gather information for the file she dismissed the charges. She further advised that if the file is ever reconstructed then the charges can be re-instituted.
