The Tribune

Recommendations sent on several homicide by manslaughter rulings

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

POLICE Commissioner Clayton Fernander said he has received recommendations from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions concerning the potential criminal prosecution of officers involved in killings that returned adverse inquest findings within the last year.

He said he will review the recommendations with his legal team.

Acting director of Public Prosecutions Cordell Frazier sent him recommendations concerning the deaths of Deangelo Evans, Shanton Forbes and Dino Bain, The Tribune understands. Jurors in the Coroner’s Court inquests for those matters returned a homicide by manslaughter finding, and the DPP’s office has faced pressure to decide whether any officer who might have been involved in the killings will be prosecuted.

Commissioner Fernander told The Tribune: “We will view it as a team and if I have my views or input in it, I will send my views back to the DPP, but I will view as well to see what it is that she directed us to do, but I will have a hand in it in making a decision as well.”

Three officers shot Forbes on March 25, 2018, in Yellow Elder. The man later died at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

Evans, meanwhile, was killed on Sandy Lane in Mason’s Addition on May 27, 2018. Officers were responding to an alleged armed robbery suspect.

While the officers maintained that Evans was armed, several eyewitnesses said he was not.

By convention, the police always follow the recommendation of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.