3 / 9
Kraal shootings involving the Special Anti-
Crime Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary
Force two decades later.
QUESTIONABLE BACKGROUNDS
Like Braeton and Kraal, the security
forces said those killed at Green Bay had
questionable backgrounds and the shooting
was justified. Others, including (retired)
Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) officer
Colonel Allan Douglas, believe the act was
cold-blooded murder.
“Green Bay was a murderous and
unprofessional act carried out by members
of the JDF,” Colonel Douglas told
The
Sunday Gleaner
last week. “It is a chapter
in the history of the JDF and indeed
Jamaica that I am extremely ashamed of.”
In February 1982, four years after the
incident, 10 JDF soldiers were freed of
murder charges in the Manchester Circuit
Court. They were also freed of conspiracy
to murder.
Interestingly, at the coroner’s inquest
in May 1978 the jury found that ‘persons
conspired to commit murder’ at Green Bay.
What is without question is that the men
from Southside were transported to Green
Bay in two Red Cross ambulances. At the
Coroner’s Inquest, the JDF soldiers who
testified said that the men went to the range
to collect guns smuggled into the country
and were surprised by a “Special Strike
Force”. The men opened fire on the army
patrol which retaliated, killing five of them.
The dead men were identified as Norman
‘Guttu’ Thompson, a former star footballer
for Santos and Jamaica; Glenroy Richards,
Trevor Clarke, Winston Hamilton and
Martin Howard.
NO EVIDENCE OF A SHOOT-OUT
According to the soldiers, the other men
fled and made their way back to Southside,
an area with strong ties to the Opposition
Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). There was no
evidence of a shoot-out. A comprehensive
search of the area two weeks later
recovered a rusty gun that had not been
used for many years.
The JDF story did not go down well with
the public and organisations including the
JLP and the Jamaica Council for Human
Rights. The latter called for an impartial
independent commission of enquiry.
Initially, the Minister of National Security,
Dudley Thompson, scoffed at the outcry.
His now infamous statement, “No angels
died at Green Bay,” further fuelled an
explosive affair; eventually, he relented and
ordered a Coroner’s Inquest.
Those who died at Green Bay were not
squeaky clean. Thompson was convicted
for shoplifting in Bermuda while playing a
match for Jamaica there in 1973; Richards
was arrested for murder in 1970, but was
never tried; Howard was convicted for
larceny in 1974, while Clarke was charged
with breaching the Dangerous Drug Act in
1976.
Hamilton, a contractor, had no criminal
record.
After a two-week delay, a Coroner’s
Inquest into the Green Bay incident opened
with the 10 JDF soldiers, the five survivors
and (then Captain) Douglas among those
testifying. Also taking the stand was
Junior Douglas, an agent of the military
intelligence who said he was at Green Bay
at the time of the shooting.
Junior Douglas (no relation to Allan)
said the men were lured to Green Bay by
JDF agents in the ambulances, taken to the
firing range and ambushed by soldiers led
by Major Ian Robinson and Captain Karl
Marsh.
The five survivors corroborated Douglas’
testimony and eight weeks after the inquest
began, the jury returned a unanimous
verdict that “person or persons were
criminally responsible” for the death of five
men at Green Bay.
In July, a Supreme Court judge issued
bench warrants for murder, for officers
Major Robinson and Sergeant LaFlamme
Schooler, and soldiers Desmond Grant,
Errol Grant, Everald King, Colin Reid
and Joel Stainrod. Major Robinson,
Captain Marsh, Lieutenant Suzanne Haik,
Lieutenant Frederick Fraser and Sergeant
Schooler were all charged with conspiracy
to murder.
All were acquitted. In June and July
1981, respectively, Frater, Haik and Marsh
were freed after the court upheld a no-case
submission on their behalf; Robinson and
Schooler were found not guilty in July
1981.
As for the murder charges, the seven
accused walked free from the Manchester
Circuit Court on February 8, 1982, after
the Director of Public Prosecutions entered
a
nolle prosequi
(decision not to pursue the
case any further).
The Green Bay case was over.
A.J. Nicholson, a member of the defence
team, exclaimed: “Justice has triumphed!”
Some journalists, among
them
Gleaner
columnist Wilmot Perkins,
questioned the verdict. Dudley Thompson,
who gained international fame during the
1950s as the lawyer who defended Kenyan
nationalist Jomo Kenyatta for his part in
the Mau Mau uprising in that country,
never lived down his infamous ‘Angels’
utterance.
In 2001, when there were calls for
politicians and public officials to admit
their wrongs and failures in a truth and
rights reconciliation forum, the combative
Thompson finally apologised for the
remark he had made 23 years earlier.
Colonel Allan Douglas retired from the
JDF in 2002 and now lives in Florida.
He says some in the army considered his
testimony against the JDF traitorous but
insists to this day that five innocent men
died at Green Bay.
Soldiers man roadblock in the Green Bay area.