By PAVEL BAILEY
Tribune Staff Reporter
pbailey@tribunemedia.net
TWO men testified about the chaos that consumed Masons Addition after police killed Deangelo Evans in 2018 and the crowd’s scepticism about officers’ claim that the 20-year-old had a gun.
Edmund Lee and Dwight Johnson testified in the Coroners Court yesterday, one a cousin and the other a friend who allegedly accompanied Evans before he was killed.
Mr Lee lives across the street from where Evans was shot on Sandy Lane. He said he was cooking breakfast on May 27, 2018, when he saw Evans and Mr Johnson walk down McCullough Corner. He said he soon heard gunshots; his wife told him that Evans had been shot.
After running to see what happened, Mr Lee said that he saw Evans lying face down on the road between a light pole and a wall with police officers Corporal Wright and Inspector Wilson standing nearby with their guns drawn. When Mr Lee tried to confront the officers about what happened, they refused to answer. He then allegedly heard someone in the crowd shout that Evans was unarmed.
“Deangelo was laying on the floor,” Mr Evans said. “I saw his red jacket laying on the floor. I went out the front gate, called his name. He tried to get up. Only his shoulders get up. He fell back to the floor and stretch out his foot. This time I walked slowly. I was approaching the officers. I asked them: ‘What happened?’ I get no response from them. I walked closer and closer slowly. As I reach him, I put my front to them and my back to the wall. I looked at Deangelo. He was bleeding. I kneel down to the floor beside him, and I zipped open his jackets, put the jackets down to his shoulders. I asked them again: ‘What happened? We need to call him an ambulance.’ I still get no response from them.”
“In a matter of seconds, no longer than two minutes, people started to come to the scene. My cousin, Gramico, he came to assist with Deangelo. The crowd start to draw closer, lot of people start coming in. I heard somebody in the crowd say: ‘This little bey ain’t had no gun’. I heard one of the officers say: ‘Then what this is?’ I looked at that officer. He wasn’t at the position that he was when I came out of the gate. At this time, he was behind the jeep. I looked at him, I saw a gun beneath his foot.”
Under cross-examination from Quintin Percentie, who represents Evans’ estate alongside Ryzard Humes, Mr Lee said after Inspector Wilson changed position with the gun underneath him, he heard someone in the crowd say the officer “put that there”.
Mr Lee said that after other officers arrived ten to fifteen minutes later, Inspector Wilson picked up the gun underneath his foot and left in a jeep.
Dwight Johnson testified that he saw Evans exit a shop just before the shooting. He said he and the deceased were walking down McCullough Corner when two officers in a dark jeep approached them with their guns drawn.
He recalled an officer saying, “Y’all around here doing stupidness” as the pair surrendered and put their hands above their heads.
Mr Johnson said that an officer with a pistol in his right hand aimed at the back of his head searched him with his left hand. The other officer, carrying what he called a machine gun, escorted Evans across the street while the deceased still had his hands in the air.
Mr Johnson claimed that the officer pushed his head forward when he tried to look behind him to see what was happening with Evans.
Mr Johnson said after Evans was shot, he ran away to the home of Evans’ parents, where he cried before returning later to the scene.
Mr Johnson told Attorney Humes he was not treated like a suspect when he returned to the scene. He said he was arrested later that day at the hospital.
Meanwhile, PC Deneko Major testified that around 9.50am that day, as a mobile division member, he was responding to an armed robbery call in Masons Addition when he heard gunshots. When he arrived on Sandy Lane, he said he saw two officers near Evans as the body lay on the ground surrounded by a hostile crowd of around 70 to 100 people.
Major also said he saw Inspector Wilson standing near Evans with a firearm under his foot.
During cross-examination, Mr Humes said he was focused on the safety of officers and preserving the scene.
K Melvern Rolle represents the two officers in the case: Corporal Wright and Inspector Wilson.
Patrick Sweeting is marshalling the evidence.
Commenting has been disabled for this item.