FOR THE FIRST TIME in Barbadian history, a family and an attorney at law are conducting their own investigation into the death of a man fatally shot by a police officer.
In an impassioned public announcement yesterday, attorney and social activist David Comissiong and the mother of Jamar Maynard, 27, shot by police on April 3, said they no longer had confidence in the Royal Barbados Police Force investigating its officers, since no such case had ever led to an officer standing trial.
They also reported that the evidence was clear Maynard was shot from the rear, which was enough to demand that the shooter account for his or her action before a judge and jury.
Flanked by Jamar’s mother Deborah Maynard and Marguerita Maloney, mother of I’Akobi Maloney, who died following an incident involving police four years ago, Comissiong told the media:
“Faced wth a situation of the Royal Barbados Police Force investigating itself, we felt it prudent that Jamar’s family should seek to carry out their own independent investigation, and so we have taken it upon ourselves to try to ferret out eyewitnesses and to get statements from persons who might have seen anything related to the shooting of Jamar.”
Read the full story in today’s DAILY NATION.
