A high-profile Jamaican gang trial took a dramatic turn this week as a defendant accused of being a driver for the Tesha Miller faction of the Klansman Gang made explosive allegations against police officers. BJourn Thomas testified before the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston that members of the now-disbanded Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigation Branch (C-TOC) subjected him to brutal treatment during his arrest in March 2023.
Thomas claimed that officers forced him to kneel beside the body of his fatally shot friend while issuing death threats and homophobic slurs. According to his statement, read into court record by an investigator from the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom), the incident occurred during a police operation in North Avenue, Spanish Town, on March 5, 2023.
The defendant described being physically assaulted at the scene, sustaining a head injury from being struck with a water bottle and his foot being hit with a firearm. In a particularly unusual detail, Thomas alleged that the entire police team temporarily abandoned the scene to purchase ice cream from a passing truck before transporting him to custody.
These allegations directly contradict earlier testimony from a detective corporal who stated he shot Thomas’s acquaintance during a confrontation after the man raised a firearm. The defense team has aggressively challenged this narrative, accusing the detective—a skilled marksman with over 10 fatal shootings to his record—of executing the man in cold blood and then using intimidation tactics to coerce a star witness into fabricating evidence.
The Indecom investigator’s testimony inadvertently undermined Thomas’s account regarding surveillance cameras preventing his execution, as she confirmed no cameras were present on the premises and no video evidence was reviewed. However, she did corroborate that the prosecution’s star witness appeared “very distraught” and fearful during interviews, though she provided no specific details due to prosecution objections.
The trial, involving 25 alleged gang members facing 16 offenses allegedly committed between 2017 and 2022, continues before Supreme Court Justice Dale Palmer. This case represents the second faction of the Klansman Gang to be prosecuted through Jamaica’s judicial system.