Furious residents protest recorder producer’s killing - But cops said Tadmar was a known criminal

Two pots with rice and curried chicken sat on the stove in Mabreco 'Tadmar' Watson's kitchen at Grants Pen, St Andrew. The recorder producer, according to his girlfriend, was helping to prepare dinner for his family when he was shot and killed by cops on Tuesday night.

The woman's voice trembled as she recalled the frightening events of the previous night.

"We lay down a watch cartoon and him grandfather in the kitchen a cook. We hear like supme drop inna di kitchen and him get up and say him go look because him grandfather in there and he cannot see good. By the time him open the door, mi just hear when him bawl out, and that's it," she said.

The woman said she initially thought that their house was being invaded by gunmen, so she and her daughter hid behind a piece of furniture.

"Mi hear somebody say gunman! Gunman! But no one else was in the yard. It was just me, him, mi daughter and him grandfather. The police dem never know say mi and mi daughter was in here and it was after mi daughter scream out dem move the curtain and come inside. Dem ask mi who mi is to him, and if a fi him daughter, and dem tell mi to comfort mi child and don't move," the woman related.

At this point, Tadmar, the producer of Jashii's Cream Of The Crop single, lay on his living room floor, mortally wounded. His seven-year-old stepdaughter, according to her mother, trembled with fear.

"Nuh kill mi, nuh kill mi, please. Mi nuh wah dead. Please, nuh kill mi," the child reportedly plead.

Senior Superintendent of Police Aaron Fletcher, head of the St Andrew North Police Division, said Tadmar was a known criminal who was killed during a confrontation.

"Yesterday (Tuesday) the police had a confrontation with a known criminal, a man called Tadmar who we have evidence shot and killed a man whilst he was performing some construction work in the community, and fired shots at another man also. The police, having received information that the man was back at his abode, went and was confronted. He was shot, and fatally so," Fletcher said.

But residents have dismissed the police's version of the incident. They are adamant that Tadmar, 29, was murdered. Yesterday they blocked sections of the roadway by mounting debris to which they set fire.

Tadmar's girlfriend said that in addition to killing him, the police have unfairly attacked his character.

"Dem put out inna di media say him a gunman but him never have nuh gun on him or nothing. He wasn't a gunman, a music him do. Dem kill him cold-blooded right deh so. Is a innocent youth dem kill and mi would want to know the reason why," she said.

The Independent Commission of Investigations, the body that has responsibility to investigate instances of alleged abuse by the state, has began its probe into the shooting.