Old Harbour ex-cop acquitted of INDECOM charge

Bernard, who served in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) for over a decade before resigning in 2014, was charged by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) in 2020. The charge followed a forensic review of a shooting incident in Pagee District, Port Maria, where an alleged gunman was injured during a security operation. 

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bernard had returned from the United Kingdom, where he had migrated after leaving the JCF. He had begun establishing himself as an entrepreneur, opening a restaurant and bar in Old Harbour. However, the INDECOM charge upended his life, bringing financial strain, emotional distress, and the cancellation of his US visa. 

The former detective, who was assigned to the Flying Squad, rebranded as the Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigation (C-TOC), said he was made aware of the investigation but didn’t give it much thought.

The charges against Bernard related to a predawn joint police-military operation targeting armed men in Pagee. According to Bernard, the team came under attack, leading to an exchange of gunfire in which an alleged shooter was disarmed and wounded on the hand. The injured man was treated and later charged, but the case was eventually dismissed after key officers involved were transferred, resigned or retired which caused the case to be rescheduled on multiple occasions.  

Years later, INDECOM revisited the case, claiming ballistic analysis linked Bernard’s weapon to the injury — though the report was inconclusive. Bernard maintained that multiple officers had fired 9mm weapons that day, making the evidence circumstantial. 

“It was a joint police/military operation whereby we were acting on intelligence that men were in the area with illegal guns. It was a predawn operation and upon reaching a shop in the community we saw a group of men. The men upon seeing the team ran in different directions during which they started firing at us. The security forces returned fire and managed to disarm one of the men who was shot in the arm,” he explained.

Bernard, who was on a $50,000 bond after his first appearance in the Port Maria Parish Court, was corporative throughout the investigation. But the prolonged battle, exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic, took a mental and financial toll. 

“I would have known that from you are firing gun charges are possible. But then the reality hit me that I actually got charge now and it started to stifle my business; and my family stressing over it…

“A case can go either two ways: guilty or not guilty. And when you are found guilty you don’t know what the punishment will be. So it was very stressful,” said Bernard before revealing that it was during trial that he learnt that his US Visa was revoked. 

“I have been to the US twice during the case,” he added. “I went to Norman Manley [International] Airport after buying my ticket to go to Miami only to be told that I can’t board the flight and I needed to contact the US Embassy.”

Abandoned by the system

Bernard expressed frustration over the lack of support from the JCF, noting that as a former officer acting in his official capacity, he believed the state should have covered his legal costs. 

“A number of times it dawn on me that I know the number of work that I put into the JCF to rid this country of criminal elements and risk my life so many times – and I would have done it all over again – and then to see this happening to me now knowing that I did everything by the books; it was either do or die either for myself or my teammates; and to see me on this side of the fence now without any support at all from the system that placed me in that predicament. I had to fend for my own lawyer fee and every single time I’m going to court I had to leave from Old Harbour all the way to St Mary. Sometimes the case put off until the next day, I have to rent room. It cost me a ton load of money,” he said. 

“I was acting on behalf of the state in the official capacity of my duty. So if I was still in the force on suspension, they would have a sh*t load of money to give me now. So the difference is I had resigned, they charged me as a civilian and all that monies I had to pay I have to just call it a loss.”

Ironically, Bernard was planning on rejoining the JCF, but the charge by INDECOM scupper such ambition. 

A Fearless Cop

During his tenure, Bernard earned a reputation as a fearless officer and was dubbed the ‘Lone Ranger’ by retired Judge Lorna Gayle, he tells me during a sit down inside his office. He was involved in several high-profile confrontations, including a November 2013 shootout in Spanish Town where he fatally shot two suspects in a rape and robbery case. His bravery earned him an immediate promotion to corporal the very next day by then Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington.

He was driving a police service vehicle on his way to work in the morning when he heard over the transmission of an elderly couple who had been robbed and raped in Portmore. Moments later Bernard spotted a vehicle with three men aboard, fitting the description he had just heard. He immediately gave chase while requesting back-up. However, upon entering the community of Hopedale he came under heavy gunfire. Recalling that moment, Bernard said he had to draw on all of his training experience. 

“The one at the back jump out and start fire at me. I return the fire, killed the driver and the other one in the front. I recovered a .380 magnum and later the same day the woman who was raped identified them as the same ones who robbed her and raped her,” he said. “It was five of them in all, because there was a second car with two of them in it but they speed off when the shootout started. Had I gotten help in time, we could have gotten all of them. 

“And to show you how God work in mysterious ways, the one who lived to tell the tale in the car that I shoot up, he’s the only one who didn’t rape the woman. When the woman went to identify the bodies, she saw him and said he didn’t rape her and that he said to them that ‘a no dat him come pan, him no de pon no rape business’. The two that died, they raped the woman, let her perform oral sex in front of her husband, gun butt the woman, 68 years old, and her husband. They did some nasty things to them.”

Bernard also served at the Old Harbour Police Station in his earlier days and recalled another dramatic event that almost cost him his life. One night, responding to a situation where gunmen had just robbed patrons at an event and stole the license firearm of a cop, Bernard, being the brave lion he is, accosted three men aboard a car on West Street, Old Harbour. They complied before one of the men challenged the home town cop as he was about to conduct a search of his person. A mighty tussle ensued between them lasting for some 20 minutes, he said.  

“I manage to get back the policeman’s gun but in the process I lost my gun. Him hold onto my gun and me a fire. A car lick down the two a wi in the road a tussle and the two a wi still hold on to the gun. He was a big strong boy,” he said recounting how he recited the Lord’s Prayer many times whenever the gun pointed to his head during the wrestling brawl. 

Luckily for Bernard the gun he lost was handed over to a pastor days later. 

Lessons learned

Never in his wildest dream did Bernard thought his biggest challenge would come from the state he vowed to serve and protect for a decade. The experience has taught him many lessons, chief among them – mental resilience. 

“It has made me stronger,” he said. “After going through this there is not a challenge that can bring me down to a stage where I will feel like there is no way out of it. I had to be mentally strong just to cope because I couldn’t know when it was going to finish, and every time I went into that prisoner’s dock a whole different feeling came over me.”

Importance of INDECOM

Despite his ordeal, Bernard maintains that INDECOM serves a necessary role — but insists reforms are needed to prevent similar situations. 

“They are needed, because in everything you need to have a balance,” he said, before adding “they charged me on circumstantial evidence”.

“They found a piece of fragment in the man. You can’t get line and groove (ballistic DNA) from fragment. Every gun has a different feature. But from a fragment you can’t tell which gun it comes from, you can only tell that it comes from a 9mm gun. So it was a 9mm fragment they found in his hand. Yes, I wrote that I fired my 9mm weapon but nevertheless every single police officer who fired had 9mm handgun and 9mm submachine gun. So the 9mm fragment found in the man could come from myself or any other of the officers or from the crossfire between us the gunmen. 

“The ballistic report came back inconclusive yet still you charge me and carry me through the court system for five years. So I don’t think they were very thorough. I think they just throw out something and hope something stick.”

I was not hiding

Many hearing this story of the former police investigator would also argue that he had something to hide, hence the reason why he’d resigned and migrated to the UK. For Bernard that was far from his mind. 

“When I migrated to the UK I would come here [to Jamaica] twice every year, so obviously I had nothing hiding. As a matter of fact before I got charged… in 2017 I came down on holiday, INDECOM had reached out to me telling me that they had interest in me regarding the investigation but they had referred the matter to the DPP (Director of Public Prosecution) and was awaiting a ruling. So I have been cooperating from that time. I wasn’t deported from the UK, I came back here off my own free will,” he said. 

On January 21, 2025 inside the St Mary Parish Court, Bernard was acquitted by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes after being found not guilty. Bernard was represented by the law firm Ernest A Smith & Company founded by the late politician Ernest ‘Ernie’ Smith, who died in August 2021 after losing his fight with cancer. 

Now, with his name cleared, he looks forward to rebuilding his life and reapplying for his US visa in time to attend the graduation of a friend.