Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A To­ba­go cop has been charged with wound­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm fol­low­ing a shoot­ing at Bloody Bay on June 8.

PC Ker­nel Dates ap­peared be­fore the Scar­bor­ough High Court yes­ter­day and was grant­ed $350,000 bail. He was al­so or­dered to stay 200 feet away from the vic­tim, re­port twice week­ly to the Rox­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion and stay at a Pem­broke ad­dress.

The charge was laid by Asst Supt Ali­cia Pig­gott on Sun­day, fol­low­ing ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. 

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the vic­tim, Os­ae Mur­ray, of Par­latu­vi­er, was walk­ing along the road dur­ing har­vest cel­e­bra­tions when he was ap­proached by Dates, who was hold­ing his li­censed gun. Po­lice say Dates al­leged­ly struck the vic­tim about his up­per body with his hands and the firearm.

Mur­ray al­leged­ly picked up a piece of bam­boo to de­fend him­self and was about to hit Dates, who shot him once in his ab­domen. 

Dates was tak­en to the Rox­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment and lat­er trans­ferred to Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal where he was ward­ed for sev­er­al days un­der po­lice guard. 

Mur­ray suf­fered se­vere in­ter­nal dam­age due to the gun­shot and lost one of his kid­neys. He was lat­er dis­charged from hos­pi­tal. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, a rel­a­tive said the fam­i­ly felt re­lieved that the case was pro­ceed­ing speed­i­ly. How­ev­er, they said Mur­ray has not yet ful­ly re­cov­ered from the in­ci­dent and ex­pe­ri­ences pain in­ter­mit­tent­ly.

Rel­a­tives pre­vi­ous­ly said there had been bad blood in­volved af­ter the cop be­gan dat­ing one of Mur­ray’s for­mer com­pan­ions.

The shoot­ing was al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty.

The mat­ter was ad­journed un­til No­vem­ber 3.