THE Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) says that former Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington is being interviewed in its ongoing investigations into allegations of a police hit squad that operated in Clarendon.
INDECOM communication manager Kahmile Reid made it clear yesterday that the probe was a formality because Ellington was the commissioner at the time.
She said the investigation had to with the reporting chain at the time.
“[The investigation] takes into account the chain of command,” she said. “Because the buck stops with the police commissioner it naturally went there. It’s a hierarchical thing.”
Reid added that the INDECOM investigation has two parts — one focuses on the criminal aspect and the other on the supervision and the administrative part of who answers to whom in the Clarendon division. She said that everybody answers to the commissioner.
“That’s why the commissioner is involved,” Reid told the Jamaica Observer.
A number of police officers stationed in Clarendon are before the court on charges of murder in relation to the shooting deaths of civilians.
Ellington retired from the post in June 2014 before the designated end of his contract.
At the time he said that he believed his retirement would allow INDECOM to conduct its investigation into the allegations of police-involved killings in the Clarendon Division without any perception of influence or interference on his part.
