South/Cen­tral As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar has con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tor has been ap­point­ed in the po­lice killing of Shum­ba James and Visham Ryan Lochan.

James, 43, and Lochan, 34, were killed on Fri­day af­ter an al­leged shootout with of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force in St Mary’s Vil­lage, Moru­ga.  

James was the front seat pas­sen­ger in a car dri­ven by Lochan when, ac­cord­ing to ini­tial re­ports, there was an ex­change of gun­fire with the po­lice. Po­lice said two pis­tols were re­cov­ered. Mys­tar pro­vid­ed no ad­di­tion­al de­tails but said the au­top­sies would be done this week.

James was well known to the po­lice and was a key wit­ness in the State’s failed case against six po­lice of­fi­cers for the 2011 triple po­lice killing in Bar­rack­pore in which his ex-girl­friend, Alana Dun­can, Abi­gail John­son and Ker­ron “Fin­gers” Ec­cles. 

James, a res­i­dent of St Mary’s, was the first per­son ar­rest­ed via a de­ten­tion or­der dat­ed Jan­u­ary 12 un­der the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed State of Emer­gency (SoE).

James was al­so the first per­son de­tained un­der the re­cent SoE. His ar­rest was or­dered by then-Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds. A gazetted le­gal no­tice said the or­der was is­sued as James has been iden­ti­fied as a cred­i­ble sus­pect in var­i­ous il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing plan­ning tar­get­ed killings of in­di­vid­u­als as­sist­ing the po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The de­ten­tion was deemed nec­es­sary to pre­vent James from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty and or­der.

The SoE was de­clared on De­cem­ber 30 and end­ed on April 13.

James had pre­vi­ous­ly faced sep­a­rate charges of home in­va­sion and at­tempt­ed mur­der.

The fam­i­lies of both men are claim­ing that they were ex­e­cut­ed and are de­mand­ing jus­tice. James’s fa­ther Frank Gill claimed that his son was re­turn­ing af­ter cast­ing his bal­lot as a spe­cial vot­er in the Morua/Table­land con­stituen­cy.

Lochan’s un­cle-in-law Fa­zo­ol Mo­hammed, who re­ferred to him as a broth­er, said they were keep­ing Lochan’s three-year-old son dis­tract­ed to avoid any ques­tions about his fa­ther, while Lochan’s wife and oth­er rel­a­tives were “not cop­ing well.” He said hours af­ter the shoot­ing on Fri­day, the po­lice came to raid his (Lochan) home but even­tu­al­ly left with­out search­ing it.

“I don’t know what they are try­ing to cook up. My two broth­ers are gone. Some­body has to an­swer for that. I want jus­tice for their deaths,” he lament­ed.

While the po­lice have not yet dis­closed any de­tails to them about the shoot­ing, he said wit­ness­es claimed the po­lice who shot them were in a white ve­hi­cle, not a jeep.

Mo­hammed said the wit­ness­es claimed that Lochan “put out” his hands while James opened the door and ran. “Who­ev­er did the shoot­ing and killed them, it wasn’t right. I does be with Ryan and Shum­ba and I nev­er see none of them with no gun,” said Mo­hammed. 

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty is al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing and is ask­ing any­one with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward.