Prison officer Neko Sargent told the coroner’s inquest of three living prisoners entering a prison bus on Yamacraw Road for Her Majesty’s Prison only to escort two of them off alive after its arrival.
Before telling the court of how he discovered the lifeless body of Neil Brown, slouched over a seat at the back of the bus, Officer Sargent, who rode in the bus to the prison, reported that the three prisoners were seated at the back of the bus.
After arriving at the prison, he told of walking Barry Parcoi and Forrester Bowe off the bus to a holding area. At the time, Sargent said, he did not notice anything in particular about Brown, who was seated at the back of the bus with the other prisoners.
When he returned to the bus to escort Brown from the bus, however, he said he touched him, but got no response.
Sargent said he then got Dr Donaldson; the prison’s doctor, and told him one of the prisoner’s was unresponsive. According to Sargent, the last time that he saw Brown on the bus, he was slumped over the chair.
Shown pictures of a deceased Brown on the bus, Sargent told the court that the position of Brown in the picture was not the same as when he had first discovered him.
Officer Sargent’s memory had to prodded by Magistrate Virgill later in the trial when he was not able to remember much pertaining to prison officers who handled the three prisoners onto the bus.
When the Magistrate wanted to know how and who brought the prisoners on the bus, Sargent told the Magistrate that he was too “out of it” to remember.
Magistrate Virgill wanted to know how the officer could remember everything so well up to the point of the prisoners getting onto the bus, but could not remember anything else.
She asked him to be forthright with the court and reminded him that the purpose of the inquest was to sort out events that led to the death of.one of his comrades.
Sargent later said that the only officer he remembered on the bus that morning was the driver, an officer S. Kelly. The Magistrate did not press the issue.
Officer Sargent went on to relay how an officer, attempting to hit Barry Parcoi during a scuffle at the back of the bus, missed him and hit the back glass, smashing it completely out.
The officer in question was not identified by the Sargent.
The last officer to take the stand on Tuesday, Prison Guard Sandy Mackey, told of being confronted by and shooting at an unidentified person running toward him in the dark bushes off Yamacraw Road.
Officer Mackey related how he gave chase to three unidentified men in the early morning hours of January 17th.
During the chase, Mackey said he fired a warning shot, and one of the men turned back and began running in his direction with his hands in the air.
The officer then said he fired a shot at the person when he was about four feet away, and the person slowly went on his knees.
At the same time, the other two persons stopped running and came back to where the first prisoner was on his knees. They too, he said, got on theirs.
Mackey said that he was not able to identify any of the persons who came and kneeled in front of him because of the darkness and did not find out who they were until later that morning.
Officer Mackey’s testimony, that he was the one to capture the three men, contradicted the testimony given by the officer who testified before him, Officer Neko Sargent.
In Sargent’s testimony, he claimed that when the officers were giving chase to the escaping prisoners, he stumbled and fell over somebody. He said he grabbed the person whom he stumbled over and held the person down until he received help from the police in cuffing him.
He later identified the person as Barry Parcoi.
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The matter was adjourned to 10am today.
By MARK HUMES, The Tribune
