He honestly believed a taxi driver was going to mow him down with his vehicle.
As a result, said_27-year-old Rashidi Akins Smith, he reacted and threw a beer bottle into_the vehicle.
However, the missile struck an innocent passenger, who was holding a toddler, opening a wound at the back of her head.
“You were so wrong. You were so wrong!” declared Magistrate Douglas Frederick_to the first-time_offender yesterday.
“You could have killed an innocent woman and a child. That could have been anybody in society and you struck her in the back of the head,” the magistrate told Smith before remanding him_to HMP Dodds for the_next 28 days.
Smith, of Downhill Drive, Eden Lodge,_St Michael, had just pleaded guilty, in Court No. 1 of the District “A” Magistrates’ Court, to unlawfully and maliciously wounding Tanaka Grace_on February 28.
However, he denied damaging a vehicle, registration number_ZM 427, belonging to Amani Clarke, on the_same date.
“As a result of my actions, I want to say I did not know. . .” Smith began before he was interrupted by Magistrate Frederick, who said: “The real question is why? Why would you throw a_beer bottle?”
Smith then explained the taxi driver and he had been in “arm to arm” fight in January. Then, as he was playing soccer, he said the taxi driver sneaked up on him and stabbed him.
That injury, Smith told_the court, required stitches.
“I not too long come_out of the hospital,”_he added.
“So last night I was walking going home_and he was reversing. As I was trying to get out of the way, the van turn towards me so I had to get out the way,”_he explained.
“And I tell myself like he trying to lick me down so I throw the bottle and accidentally hit the woman,” Smith told_the court.
But the magistrate told the first-time offender it sounded like he had been trying to settle a score, which Smith denied.
“You understand you are wrong and you understand the extent to which you are wrong and you must have calculated the consequences,” the magistrate noted.
Magistrate Frederick added he would be ordering a pre-sentencing report on Smith but would be remanding him in_the interim.
Smith returns to court on March 29.
Prosecutor Sergeant Theodore McClean, who outlined the facts, said the complainant was the front seat passenger in the taxi when she was struck in the back of the head by an object thrown by Smith.
The complainant was examined by the taxi driver, who took her to_the police station. At the time of the incident_she was holding her_three-year-old child.
She was subsequently treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and received three stitches in the back of her head.
Smith was later pointed out and, when interviewed by police, said he had not seen the woman in the vehicle and was not aware that she had been injured as a result of his actions. (HLE)
