Soldiers shoot two dead in August Town; one stopped for smoking marijuana
Jamaican soldiers shot dead 20-year-old footballer Gayon Alcott and community activist Sandra Sewell in August Town on 19 September 2004. Witnesses said Alcott was stopped for smoking marijuana and shot again as he fled; a forensic expert's autopsy findings backed their accounts.
On 19 September 2004, during a state of emergency declared as Hurricane Ivan approached, soldiers of the Jamaica Defence Force shot dead two people in August Town, St Andrew.[1]Community witnesses said the soldiers approached 20-year-old footballer Gayon Alcott because he was smoking marijuana and shot him in the stomach, then shot him again as he tried to flee; Sandra Sewell, a community activist, was shot as she sought cover from the gunfire.[1][2]
Amnesty International called for a full and impartial investigation, noting the army chief’s 2003 assurance that abuse allegations would be thoroughly investigated.[1]At the families’ request, Dundee forensic expert Derrick Pounder observed the autopsies and visited the scene.[2]He found Sewell killed instantly by a military-rifle shot consistent with crouching to avoid fire, and Alcott shot twice, findings he said supported the witnesses’ accounts.[3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The soldiers' own account of the shooting is not recorded in these sources, and no later investigation or inquest outcome was established from them.
All three accounts used here come from Amnesty International's contemporaneous publications; no Jamaican press account with a recoverable page was found.
No photograph or video of the shooting or its aftermath with a recoverable direct address was found in the opened sources.
The St James Parish Court fined 76-year-old Washington Hylton $17,000 after eight ounces of ganja were found in his luggage at Sangster International Airport as he prepared to leave for London. He pleaded guilty to possession and attempting to export the cannabis.
Jamaican police arrested two men and a woman during a six-hour series of raids in Highlight View and Half-Way Tree, St Andrew, seizing marijuana worth about $500,000 and what they called an assortment of offensive weapons. The operation targeted suspected extortionists and gang members in the illicit drugs-for-guns trade.
Dalton Fang pleaded guilty to possession after officers found about one ounce of ganja hidden inside dumplings he brought to the Montego Bay police lock-up. The St James Parish Court fined him $5,000, with 10 days in jail as the alternative.
Police charged two Westmoreland men with possession, dealing and trafficking after FNID officers found cocaine and ganja in their car on Mandela Highway on March 4. The ganja quantity was not specified, so no cannabis weight is recorded, and the men are due before the St Catherine Parish Court on March 13.
