The Tribune

Pavel Bailey

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

AN officer breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as a jury returned a finding of justifiable homicide for the fatal shooting of a man that charged at him with a cutlass in Fox Hill in 2018.

Assisted Superintendent of Police Darrington Sands was present as the jury returned its finding after 30 minutes of deliberation.

No members of the deceased family were present as the inquest came to a close before Coroner Kara Turnquest Deveaux.

ASP Sands shot 43-year-old Jermaine Desmond Minnis at around 1.40pm on November 15 2018. He, along with his partner, were responding to calls of a suspect armed with a cutlass threatening to kill people.

The deceased was shot four times after he charged at the two officers with the cutlass, despite their efforts to deescalate situation.

This is the third finding of justifiable homicide this year.

In May, a similar finding was reached in the inquest into the deaths of Deshoan “Spider” Smith, 25, Rashad Clarke, 28, and Jared Ford, 27. The men were fatally shot near Spikenard and Cowpen Roads on 13 June 2020.

Dr K Melvin Munroe, the defendant’s attorney, told the Tribune after the finding that his client was relieved by the outcome after having this on his mind since 2018.

Dr Munroe said that ASP Sands was acting in the defense of lives and that the officer was injured during the incident. Dr Munroe said that the deceased did not go down after one shot and that it took four shots to subdue him.

He said that ASP Sands from the inception of the incident followed his training and responded reasonably in circumstances.

Prior to the inquest’s conclusion, Dr Caryn Sands, a pathologist, said the deceased cause of death was gunshot wounds to the torso and right arm (extremities).

Dr Sands said she observed four gunshot wounds to the deceased chest. She continued that the bullets penetrated his ribs, lungs and intestine. She said it was possible that a bullet passed through the defendant’s chest and arm due to the proximity of wounds. She further said that the deceased had chest tubes in his body from when they attempted to resuscitate him at the hospital.

There was no evidence of close range discharge and that injuries to the deceased lungs would have proved the most rapidly fatal as it caused internal bleeding.

She said the deceased received his injuries at the same time and that he died at Princess Margaret Hospital.

In his closing address, Dr Munroe told the jury that the deceased charged at police with a cutlass after Inspector Rico Sweeting, ASP Sands’s partner that day, attempted to retrieve the weapon while it was on the top of a car trunk.

Dr Munroe stated that Inspector Sweeting threw an object at the deceased and ran away. The attorney continued that while the officer was running away he heard two shots and that when he turned around to see what happened his partner had shot the deceased twice more before Minnis went down.

Dr Munroe said that officers have the right to protect themselves from armed threat.

He urged the jury that if they too would protect themselves by any means necessary to return with a finding of justifiable homicide.

A report from Sandilands Rehabilitation Center indicated the deceased was a psych patient but that the facility had no file on him.

Angelo Whitfield marshaled the evidence.