In a striking turn of events during an ongoing Jamaican gang trial in downtown Kingston, a retired police officer who initially arrested accused Klansman gang affiliate Carlos Williams took mere seconds on Friday to correctly identify him from a group of 25 co-accused, even after defense attorneys secured a last-minute seating rearrangement and the defendant attempted a surreptitious shirt swap to throw off the witness.
The former law enforcement officer is a key witness for the Crown in the high-profile trial of members of the Tesha Miller faction of the notorious Klansman gang, testifying to the details of two counts on the sweeping indictment against the group. During his direct testimony, he walked the court through the pre-dawn arrest of Williams carried out on April 16, 2023, by Jamaica’s former Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime (C-TOC) unit at a residence on Okra Lane in Spanish Town, St Catherine.
According to the witness’s account, a search of the property uncovered a Ziploc bag stored in a dresser drawer holding 30 blank magnetic-strip cards and two embossed bank cards carrying a major Jamaican bank’s branding. He then took the then 27-year-old labourer into custody and charged him. Williams allegedly told the officer the two bank cards were his, gifted to him by a girlfriend living overseas.
When the acting deputy director of public prosecutions leading the case asked the former officer if he could pick Williams out of the dock of defendants, the witness confirmed he could, but defense attorney Petreta Gabbidon immediately objected. She requested the witness step outside the courtroom while she argued for a reshuffling of the defendant seating arrangement, a motion that was granted alongside co-counsel Lynden Wellesley’s request. Trial judge Justice Dale Palmer ordered the shuffle, instructing all defendants to remove any facial coverings and sit upright to ensure unobstructed visibility, after multiple accused had been observed slouching in their seats to hide their faces, some completely obscuring their features.
As the defendants rearranged themselves, Williams moved from his assigned seat in the secondary dock to the main holding area, where witnesses saw him attempt to trade his signature blue patterned shirt with another co-accused. The swap was cut short, however, when Justice Palmer spotted the half-completed exchange, with both men already stripped down to their white undershirts. The judge halted the swap immediately, ruling that unauthorised clothing changes could not take place in the courtroom, leaving the two men sitting side by side in matching white tees.
When the former officer returned to the stand to make his identification, he left the witness box, walked along both sides of the courtroom to get a clear view of every defendant in the docks, and within seconds correctly pointed to Williams, identifying him as the second-to-last man in the back row on the right side. When Justice Palmer asked the defendant to confirm his name, a dejected, crestfallen Williams replied, “Carlos Williams.” The former officer confirmed Williams faces a charge of possession of an unauthorised access device in addition to his more severe gang-related counts.
Williams, alongside co-accused Jermaine Clarke and Owen Billings, faces charges on counts 28 and 29 of the Crown’s indictment for knowingly facilitating the August 11, 2022, robbery and murder of Zamari McKay, a St Catherine resident.
During cross-examination, Wellesley attacked the former officer’s conduct during the arrest, comparing the pre-dawn operation to the biblical figure Nicodemus who visited Jesus under cover of night, claiming the officer “sneaked up” on his client. The witness pushed back, confirming the operation was a pre-planned targeted action. Wellesley also challenged the witness’s account of the evidence recovered, asserting that only one bank card with Williams’s name was found at the property, and that Williams only admitted ownership of the 30 blank cards, not the second bank card. The former officer firmly denied this claim, stating the suggestion was incorrect.
Separately, Denise Hinson, counsel for Clarke and Billings, questioned the authenticity of the witness’s investigative notes, arguing that the entries related to the 2023 arrest were a recent fabrication, not written in 2023 as the witness had testified. The former officer countered that he completed his final notes on the case on April 27, 2023, 11 days after the arrest, and finalised his official statement shortly after. He resigned from the Jamaica Constabulary Force roughly one year after the arrest.
The trial is scheduled to resume at 10:00 a.m. Monday at the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.