By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

AN officer testified yesterday that he feared for his life before his colleague shot and killed a man wielding a cutlass in Fox Hill in 2018.

Inspector Rico Sweeting gave evidence via Zoom from Grand Bahama before Coroner Kara Turnquest Deveaux as the inquest continued into the police-involved shooting of 43-year-old Jermaine Desmond Minnis, which occurred around 1.40pm on November 15 2018.

Minnis was reportedly shot by Assistant Superintendent of Police Darrington Sands, the subject of the inquest, after allegedly charging at him with a cutlass in the Fox Hill area.

Inspector Sweeting said he and ASP Sands were travelling in a police car to perform inquiries elsewhere when they stopped outside the Fox Hill Police Station, where they encountered the deceased.

He said he was the first to approach Minnis, who was armed with a cutlass. Keeping about eight feet away, he asked Minnis why he was behaving that way.

Minnis reportedly told him someone was trying to “run him” from the area and that he had already been run from a nearby park.

Inspector Sweeting said he convinced Minnis to place the cutlass on the trunk of a nearby vehicle. However, as Minnis and ASP Sands spoke, the situation escalated when Minnis suddenly tried to grab the weapon again.

He said Minnis lunged for the cutlass, grabbing the handle as Sweeting held the blade. Fearing he would be cut, Sweeting let go, and Minnis raised the weapon and charged at him.

Unarmed and terrified, the officer said he grabbed a nearby bucket, threw it at Minnis, and ran toward the road.

While fleeing, he heard a gunshot, then a second. Turning back, he saw Minnis engaging ASP Sands, who fell to the ground while retreating and fired another shot.

Inspector Sweeting said ASP Sands repeatedly ordered Minnis to drop the weapon, but Minnis continued swinging the cutlass as the officer fired. It was not until the fifth gunshot, he said, that Minnis finally fell.

Sweeting said he told officers who rushed from the nearby station to call dispatch for an ambulance, and emergency medical services later retrieved the body.

When questioned by K Melvin Munroe, ASP Sands’s attorney, Inspector Sweeting said he would have used his weapon to defend himself if he had been armed at the time.

He added that he feared for ASP Sands’s life while Minnis was swinging the cutlass.

Angelo Whitfield marshalled the evidence.