Granville residents protest fatal police shooting as INDECOM tallies May deaths

Residents of Granville, St. James, marched and set roadblocks on Monday after Latoya Buja Bulggin was fatally shot by a police officer on Sunday. Grief and anger filled the community as people pressed for answers and safer contact with the security forces.

Witnesses who asked not to be identified said an officer had stopped Bulggin and asked for her driver’s licence. They said she produced a licence from another country and the officer kept demanding documentation. One account said the officer told her to leave her black Toyota van; as she tried to shut off the engine the vehicle moved, and the officer fired once. A witness said Bulggin was not trying to flee. A police report said she had threatened to run over the officer who shot her. Footage from a camera in the area has drawn wider concern about fatal shootings by the security forces.

A member of a local peace-management group, speaking anonymously, said Bulggin was known in the area and could be difficult, but was not a criminal and did not deserve to die. The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) asked anyone with information to come forward. Some residents have reportedly spoken with the commission. Since the start of the year, five people in Granville have been killed by members of the security forces, including four-year-old Roma Bowman on New Year’s Day and 17-year-old TJ Edwards on Mother’s Day.

People’s National Party councillor Michael Troop, representing the Granville division, urged residents to overcome fear and give statements, but said INDECOM and the police must first assure the community that it is safe to do so. Firefighters doused flames from burning barricades on a main route used to reach Montego Bay. INDECOM said Bulggin’s death brought the number of people fatally shot by the security forces in May 2026 to 15, including two men killed in a police shooting in Hagley Terrace on May 16. The commission reported 130 such deaths so far in 2026, compared with 129 in the same period last year. It also noted that none of three officers assigned to crowd control at Monday’s protest were issued or wearing body-worn cameras.

At the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston, defence lawyers in the murder trial of six police officers were ready to cross-examine Agriculture Minister Floyd Green on Monday, but prosecutor Kathy Pike said her examination-in-chief was not finished. Justice Sonia Bertram-Linton had earlier confirmed with the defence that cross-examination could begin after the lunch break. Pike said, "I never said I was finished. I never said that." Defence attorney Hugh Wildman told the court it was his turn to cross-examine given what had transpired before lunch. Pike continued by asking Green to mark printed photographs of the January 12, 2013 crime scene. Green, one of two eyewitnesses, was recalled last Friday to identify scene photos. On trial are Sergeant Samroy Mut, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, and Constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose, and Richard Lynch. Fullerton also faces a charge of making a false statement to INDECOM. They are accused of murder in connection with the shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Mark Allen, and Ucliffe Dyer during an alleged shootout with police on Aadia Drive in Barbican, St. Andrew. The minister is to return to the witness stand when Pike completes her examination; Wildman, John Jacobs, and Alia Grant-Copin are then expected to cross-examine.

In a separate Home Circuit trial, Justice Dale Palmer allowed the prosecution to recall two witnesses as part of efforts to admit the statement of Chenise Roberts, who died in February 2021 from health complications. Roberts had given police a statement about the February 7, 2020 murder of Noah Smith at Yarwood Place in St. Andrew before her death. The application relates to counts 15 and 16 in the indictment against 25 alleged members of the so-called "Tester Miller" faction of the Klansman gang. Palmer imposed seven restrictions as safeguards, barred the prosecution from contacting the witnesses before they testify again, and said the ruling did not end the section 31D application under the Evidence Act. Defence counsel had challenged a detective’s identification of Roberts from a blurry photograph; another witness said she was certain it was Roberts despite the image quality. Palmer said the recall was meant to close a narrow evidential gap, not lay a new factual foundation. The trial continues on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.