The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

THE mother of Harold Brown, one of two men police killed in a chase on Tonique Williams-Darling Highway in 2017, claimed doctors left her son to die in hospital after the shooting as the Coroner’s Court inquest into the matter continued yesterday.

Richard “Buddy” Bastian and Harold “Kevin” Brown were killed on Tonique William Darling Highway around 1am on December 2, 2017. 

While Bastian was pronounced dead at the scene, Brown later died in hospital.

Melanie McPhee Thompson, Brown’s mother, testified that she was not feeling well on the night of her son’s death. She recalled that sometime around 10pm that night, her son asked her how she felt. The two talked. She lay down, and heard when he left the house. 

She said around 1am that morning, she felt compelled to wake up and noticed she had countless missed calls from her son’s ex-girlfriend.

She said a relative who is a police officer called her in tears before a call from her niece cut him off. It was then she was told “Buddy” was dead and that her son was in the hospital.

She said she saw no doctor or nurse helping her son when she arrived at the hospital. She said her son appeared unresponsive with his eyes closed.

“My son was left to die,” she said, claiming people in police-involved shootings rarely receive attention in hospital.

In describing how Brown looked on the hospital bed, she said her son had a bandage on his head from where he was reportedly shot. She also said his thigh and hands had bandages and he was wearing a diaper at the time.

Ms Thompson said an hour after she arrived at the hospital, her son passed away. 

When she went to identify his body on December 4, 2017, she said a police officer at the morgue tried to discredit him by claiming that he had trouble at work. 

She rejected that, saying several customers and coworkers from Super Value on East Street and Robinson Road, where Brown worked as a manager, called him an exemplary employee.

She said her son was not involved in criminal behaviour and was a responsible man.

She recalled that her son bought the shotgun found in his car for his protection while working late nights. She also said her son went the legal route to license the gun and kept the registration with him in his car. 

She described her son as affectionate and an excellent father to his now eight-year-old daughter. 

Ms Thompson appeared calm and collected throughout her testimony. 

She said police never came to explain the events that led to her son’s death. 

She said on the night he died, Brown picked “Buddy” up from Pressure Point bar near Tonique Williams-Darling Highway just before the shooting.

She described the two as best friends since they met in at AF Adderley Junior High School. 

Ms Thompson said she learned her son suffered seven bullet wounds. She also claimed that Brown’s silver Honda Civic had 47 bullet holes in it after the family retrieved it from police custody. 

When asked by David Cash, the attorney for the estates, how she felt about her son’s death, she said she felt “angry”. She disputed allegations that her son fired at police, claiming that her son would never do that.

Angelo Whitfield, who marshalled the evidence, moved to allow footage Ms Thompson had of the incident to be entered into evidence after it was verified.

Patricia Bastian, Richard Bastian’s mother, testified that her son told her he was going to attend his brother’s birthday celebrations at Yellow Elder Park on the night of his death. 

She recalled knocking at her door later that night after two of Bastian’s friends showed up, with one telling her: “Ms Bastian, Ms Bastian, police just headshot Buddy.”

Although she was in disbelief, she said she immediately got dressed and went to the scene, driving through police tape.

She said she saw her son’s body on the sidewalk at the crash site near Ron’s Auto on Tonique Williams-Darling Highway. 

She said when a female officer tried to question her, she told her: “You don’t have anything to ask me. Y’all just killed my son.”

She said after a police relative told her to leave the scene, saying authorities would contact her, she went but never received a call. 

In describing how she last saw her son alive, Ms Bastian said he appeared fine and was happy from just getting paid for construction work at Fusion Superplex.

She also said that her son would always “clown” on people and was a confidant for younger relatives. She said her son and Brown were “inseparable.”

She appeared stoic in court as she identified her son in a morgue photo with his eyes open. 

She said while Bastian had two prior gun charges, he had been acquitted and found not guilty for both.

When K Melvin Munroe, the attorney representing the seven officers in the inquest, asked if she was aware of a third criminal charge against her son, she said no.

Sgt Nikita Pickstock, a CSI digital investigator, played three sets of security footage from Pressure Point Bar.

In the first black and white footage, a crowd of around seven to ten people are gather outside the bar’s parking lot when a Honda Civic pulled alongside the service road. 

This car is seen reversing and picking up a passenger, later identified as Bastian, before speeding away from the bar as a police officer runs towards it and fires his gun. This same officer runs off-screen back to his police car.

During the incident, the crowd scurries into the front of the bar for cover before a larger crowd exits in the aftermath of a shooting around the time stamp of 1.07am.

Colour security footage from another vantage point showed several officers pursuing the fleeing vehicle on foot before people ran in the opposite direction.

By the 1.09am time stamp, police car lights flash past the bar.

A third blurry footage was shown, but nothing was visible in the frame.

None of the footage clearly identified either the driver or passenger of the Honda.

When questioned by Mr Munroe, Sgt Pickstock said he could not see in the footage why the officers shot at the suspects.

He also confirmed to Mr Cash that he did not see a muzzle flash from the vehicle of the men. 

When shown the same security footage, Ms Thompson said she did not see the officers identify themselves. She also claimed they did not appear fearful as they ran towards the suspects’ vehicle.