Taxi-drivers vent anger - Block Corporate Area roads to protest colleague's killing by cop ANGRY TAXI-DRIVERS used abandoned bus sheds, burning tyres and other debris to block several Corporate Area Roads yesterday morning as they vented their anger at the slaying of one of their colleagues, 19-year-old Kemar Bryan, by a policeman in Half-Way Tree on Monday evening. Roadblocks were mounted along Slipe Road, at Caledonia Place in Cross Roads and in Half-Way Tree at different times between 9:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., forcing an initial pile-up of traffic before police started diverting motorists and then cleared the roads. According to one of the protesters the policeman shot Bryan on Monday while he was still in his car for no justifiable reason. He said the police had tried to seize the car earlier in the afternoon in Half-Way Tree but that the driver tried to elude him. But he was chased up Eastwood Park Road into the Twin Gates Plaza along Constant Spring Road. "We don't want the police to take away our cars so we will do any thing to get away. And the youth siddung an hol' up him hand and the policeman just shoot him through the windscreen and kill him. So we haffi do sump'n. As them gone wi a go block back the road 'til we get justice," cried the taxi-drivers who was standing by one of the burning piles at Caledonia Place, Cross Roads. While most protested against what they called the "unjust" killing of Bryan, others complained about a raft of problems faced by taxi operators. "We can't run our taxis in peace. If you have on red plate and you have two (persons) inside, they still want to take it weh. If you have three (persons), it's the same thing. When the wrecker take it away it is $3,500 we have to pay. One man paid $20,000 the other day just to get back him car," lamented one man in Cross Roads. Further down on Slipe Road a group of soldiers and policemen were kept busy removing metal drums from the street while firemen tried to extinguish blazing tyres. While some protesters pledged they would block the roads as soon as the security forces left the scene on Slipe Road, other men, identified as political activists threatened to "give them a sound thrashing" if the roads were blocked again. By 11:20 a.m. the flow of traffic on Slipe Road started returning to normal and the smoking remains of the old tyres had been washed to one side of the road. According to Deputy Superintendent Norman Gordon, officer in charge of Crime for the St. Andrew Central Division, the shooting of the taxi operator is being thoroughly investigated and several witnesses have been interviewed and the taxi operators would be addressed on the matter by Superintendent Lola Evans of the St. Andrew Central Division. On Monday, Commissioner of Police, Francis Forbes, ordered the Bureau of Special Investigation (BSI) to conduct an immediate inquiry into the fatal shooting of Bryan in the vicinity of Twin Gates Plaza. The policeman who was involved in the fatal shooting has also been removed from front-line duties pending the outcome of the investigations. According to the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), at about 5:30 p.m. the taxi-driver who operated in the Half-Way Tree area was ordered to stop and get out of the car by the police when he sped off. The policeman gave chase on his motorcycle and caught up with the taxi-driver in the vicinity of the Twin Gates Plaza, where he ordered the driver again, to get out of the car. The police said the driver refused and attempted to run over the policeman with his car. The policeman reacted and fired a single shot from his service revolver which caught the driver in the chest. He was later rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
|
