Jamaican authorities have taken a rare step by charging a police officer with murder after he allegedly shot dead a 45-year-old woman in an incident that sparked violent protests.
According to the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom), police officer Andrew Wilson appeared in court on Wednesday and was denied bail. Another hearing is scheduled for mid-June.
The death of Latoya “Buju” Bulgin on May 17 in northwestern Jamaica triggered protests after social media footage showed an officer firing into her car during a demonstration against police violence.
According to Indecom, police were “conducting crowd control duties” at a protest in Granville against a police shooting days earlier that killed Tjey Edwardson, 17, identified by local media as Bulgin’s cousin.
In CCTV footage, Bulgin’s minivan stood still by the side of the road while several people climbed out. Officers stood nearby. With one of the side doors still open, the vehicle began to pull onto the roadway.
Without apparent warning, an officer standing a few feet away drew his pistol and fired toward the driver, amid screams and cries from bystanders. Some people fled in panic.
Officers pulled Bulgin’s motionless body from the vehicle and dropped it to the ground, then loaded it onto a police pickup truck. The officers appeared to make no attempt to administer first aid to the injured woman.
Indecom and the human rights group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) have called for increased accountability in fatal police shootings through mechanisms such as body cameras. None were worn by the officer accused of shooting Bulgin, and JFJ argued the incident underscores the importance of independent footage.
“Were it not for that CCTV footage, we would not be in a position to even have this conversation and we would probably not have seen the high command of the JCF respond,” the group’s executive director, Mickel Jackson, told Jamaica News Radio last month.
In a statement Wednesday, Indecom said the “timely collection and analysis of video evidence” in its independent investigation into Bulgin’s death “helped to establish an objective understanding of this fatal shooting.”
The commission reported 140 fatal shootings so far this year in the nation of 2.8 million people. Last year, JFJ held a protest against what it described as a “significant and alarming” increase in fatal police shootings.
The PNP Women’s Movement, an arm of the opposition People’s National Party, said the CCTV footage “raises serious questions about the use of lethal force by members of the security forces.”
The group also said it was “disturbing” that Bulgin’s body was tossed into the back of a police vehicle after she was shot. “This conduct falls below the respect that members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force should accord our citizens,” the group said.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned Bulgin’s killing and called for “a swift, independent, impartial, and transparent investigation.”
