Estate awarded $5.5m almost 11 years after police kill passenger in fleeing vehicle

The Supreme Court has awarded $5.5 million in damages plus interest to the estate of a man who was killed in 2014 in Mountain View, St Andrew, after police fired at a car in which he was travelling.

General damages of $4.5 million and aggravated damages of $1 million were awarded to Stevon Cain, the son of the deceased passenger, Granville Cain, who was shot and killed on March 15. The general damages attracted a three per cent interest from July 30, 2015, to February 7, 2026.

Stevon, the administrator of his father’s estate, was substituted as claimant following his father’s passing in September 2014. The attorney general was the defendant.

Justice Tara Carr, in handing down the order earlier this month, found that the police had acted negligently in that they acted without reasonable probable cause.

“The conduct of the police officers on the day in question was oppressive and high-handed. The fact of firing at a vehicle transporting passengers in circumstances where no one in that vehicle had fired at the police is inexcusable,” she said in the published judgment.

“They were negligent in so doing because when they fired, they must have known that passengers were in the vehicle. There was no threat to their lives as it is agreed that no one in the vehicle fired at them. As police officers, they owed Mr Cain a duty of care. They breached that duty, and he was injured,” the judge also found.

Granville was travelling in a private vehicle operated by the driver, Dwayne Colely, as a public passenger vehicle without a road licence.

On the day in question, Colely was driving along Mountain View Avenue when he disobeyed a police signal to stop and tried to evade the officers who were in a marked service vehicle.

The vehicle ended up crashing into a wall on Crest Road in St Andrew, and it is alleged that the police then fired directly into the car.

Granville, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, was struck by gunfire during the incident and was transported to the hospital but later died from his injuries, which include multiple gunshot wounds and vascular injury.

CONFLICTING TESTIMONIES

The court heard conflicting testimonies, with the police claiming that shots were fired at them from behind a wall by an unknown individual, but the evidence did not support this account. Mr Colely, who was the sole witness for the claimant, testified that no one in his vehicle fired at the police, and there was no “shootout”.

Colely, in his witness statement, admitted that he was driving the car without the requisite document but at first did not see the officer signalling him to stop.

However, on realising, he tried to escape the police, who he claimed deliberately collided with his car, causing the crash.

He said the police then fired into the car and that no one in his car fired at the police. Colely said he then fled the scene even though he knew that someone in his car was injured.

Granville, in his statement, said he heard gunshots after the car crashed. However, he denied firing at the policemen while indicating that he did not see anyone shooting at them from the car.

Corporal Wycliff Brown, who was the driver of the service vehicle, in his evidence on behalf of the attorney general, said that on the day in question, he received a call to proceed to Mountain View. While on his way there, he heard explosions and observed that a vehicle had crashed into a wall.

He said the driver of the car fled the scene, but he saw another man on the inside of the gate of a premises there and that the man pointed a weapon in his direction, and in fear for his life, he fired in the direction of the man.

However, the court rejected the police’s version of events.

‘NO EVIDENCE’

“There is no evidence before this court to suggest that anyone in the vehicle fired at the police. The evidence from Corporal Brown is that the shooter was in the yard behind a gate. Who was this person? It certainly was not Mr Colely.

“Is it that this person was just standing in the yard armed with a firearm when Mr Colely collided with the wall of the premises? I find that to be highly unlikely. Furthermore, what would be the reason for firing at the police?” the judge asked.

According to the judgment, investigators found nine expended 5.56 casings at the scene, and the judge noted that the reasonable inference to be drawn was that they came from the same calibre.

However, Carr questioned Colely’s credibility as he had indicated during cross-examination that he was not running from the police because he had done nothing wrong and that the police had hit his vehicle,although there was no evidence from the crime scene to support his assertion.

Meanwhile, the judge, in awarding the general damages, took into account the injuries suffered by the victim but did not factor in the loss of income as the passenger had indicated in his statement that he was unemployed. However, his son told the court that his father did gardening and odd jobs, but the judge rejected his evidence, saying it was not plausible and that there was no supporting evidence. She also noted that Stevon would have been a child at the time of the incident.

Attorneys-at-law Marion Green and Andrea Lannaman represented Stevon, and Robert Clarke was instructed by the director of state proceedings for the attorney general.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com