‘I used to say, ‘Good job, police’, but now I feel it’

Relatives of 35-year-old businessman Jordon Perry Smith took their grief and anger to the streets of Seaford Town, Westmoreland, on Monday, demanding answers over his fatal shooting during a police operation.

The protest came three days after Smith was killed at his home in an incident police sources have described as a shoot-out, while his relatives continue to reject that account and accuse members of the Constabulary Force of executing him.

Smith’s cousin, Steve Kameka, said the family was driven to protest because they feared that his death would otherwise be forgotten.

“We have to come out here and protest, because if we don’t come out here and protest, my cousin’s life is going to go in vain. He’s not going to come back, but we want justice,” Kameka said.

He questioned the circumstances surrounding Smith’s death and demanded evidence to support the police account.

“The police that killed my cousin should get taken off the front line and stand up in front of a judge and prove it. Show evidence of why you killed him,” he said.

He also questioned the handling of evidence at the scene by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM).

“Me already feel like INDECOM [failed us], because over two times you’ve come back to pick up spent shells. So what kind of job are you doing? I already feel that you’re a failure,” Kameka said.

He said Smith’s death had also shaken his confidence in the police.

“I used to say, ‘Good job, Officer.’ Now you see where me deh? Me deh in front and me deh tell you because I feel it now.

“And now I realise police is killing whole heap of innocent people. A pure badman in Jamaica? Oh, God Almighty!”

Meanwhile, another of Smith’s cousins, Claudia Bell, said members of the family, including his young children, are struggling to cope with his death.

“All a we stress out. Dem tek we family from we,” Bell said.

“How you expect we fi trust police now? Everybody fear police. Nobody don’t know what to think. You take di man life cold-blooded in front of his youth.”

Bell also questioned the absence of political representatives during the protest.

“We need an MP (member of parliament) in our place right now. We don’t see no MP – nobody at all – from this happen,” she said.

“And if it were certain community, they would run out already. But yet they want we vote.”

Smith’s grandmother, Evelyn Salmon, described him as loving and said his death has left a void in the family.

“[Dem] brutally murder him in his house before him wife and him children dem. They brutally murder him. Me no have any more grandson like him,” Salmon said.

She maintained that Smith was not a wanted man and had spent his life in the community, where he cultivated crops and built his home.

“See the house up there so. Dem drag him from down there to the pond and throw him in there like an animal,” the grandmother said.

“The only place he go is doing cultivation up on the hill ... . Him no go nowhere, he is not a wanted person. Him no leave him yard.”

mickalia.kington@gleanerjm.com