BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN an exclusive interview with SKNVibes, Unique Browne, the girlfriend of the late Dennis Akeem ‘Not Nice’ Marryshaw who was shot and killed on Tuesday (Dec. 7) by a police officer, is of the view that the lawman could have exerted less force in the execution of his duty.
Browne said the relationship between herself and Marryshaw began on March 4, 2010 and they had shared a home with his aunt in Prickley Pear Alley.
She said that on the day he was killed, the 18-year-old employee of Coury’s Wholesale was sent on an errand by his boss sometime after 11:00 a.m. and he used the opportunity to go to their home in search of her, but she was not there.
“He called me some minutes to 12 and asked where I was and told me to meet him,” she said.
Browne said he followed up that call with a number of others, saying it was urgent that she meet with him.
“He called me and told me to meet him by Fort Street. Then he called me back and said, ‘Baby whey you be, hurry up.’ I told him that I was coming. When I came across the street I met him by the Ital place on Cayon Street and he said, ‘This boy just try kill me’,” Browne told this media house.
She added that Marryshaw had pointed to a tall male, who was standing near to him, as the individual who wanted to kill him.
Browne noted that Marryshaw told the tall individual, “Boy when you and the people them in drama don’t put me in it. You and them man got war don’t put me in nothing.”
She said the tall individual had put up his hand to indicate the sign of a gun and he started to run, and that action prompted her boyfriend to take a meat cleaver out of his waist and ran after him.
“I said stop baby, don’t do that. A friend of mine who was also there said, ‘Girl Unique hold you man…Not Nice stop, stop,’” Browne continued.
She said her boyfriend had stopped running after the man because he recognised a number of men from the gang to which the man is affiliated were standing in the vicinity of the Potential Bar, and may have thought that they would have ganged up on him.
“The police then come running and hold him by his throat. Akeem started wrangling because he couldn’t breathe and he dropped the meat chopper out of his hand. Then the police took out his gun and squeeze the trigger and shoot him below his navel,” she said.
Browne said that Marryshaw dropped to his knees and asked the police why he shot him.
“Why you shoot me boy, why you shoot me?”
She claimed that the police slammed Marryshaw’s head into the building near to Blondelle’s Store, which caused him to fall on his side and he subsequently turned and lay on his back.
“Baby help me, baby help me…Tah Tah help me,” Browne noted Marryshaw had said to her.
She also claimed that someone told her to hold him but the officer said, “Hold what?"
Browne further claimed that the officer also said to Marryshaw, “F%$#*@# cool, cool”.
“I asked the police how you could tell the man so, you ain’t see what you do the boy. Then people started saying he didn’t have any call to shoot him with any straight shot. I wouldn’t have mind if it was a rubber bullet. Then he started saying, ‘You gon tell me how to do me job, you gon tell me how to do the job’,” Browne said.
She continued: “I was going to hold Akeem so he could feel me hand, letting him know I still there. And he asked the police, ‘Why you shoot me in front me woman, why you do that?’
“The policeman told me I needed to go back. He throw me on the ground then my friend said, ‘Boy wha you doing the boy woman.’ And the police said he doing he job.”
Browne said another policeman arrived at the scene and she allegedly overheard him telling the officer who shot her boyfriend that he did not have any reason to shoot him.
“I said, you’re a policeman, you gon watch an innocent man see he running and trying to fight for his life in self defence and you gon just shoot the man like that? He then said, ‘A beg you hard, hush and go back.’ I said ain’t so you suppose to talk to people. Everyone was there saying you ain’t a policeman, and a next policeman said, ‘Tusty, why you do de man that for?’” Browne explained.
She said that a number of persons went to assist her boyfriend and “I saw white stuff coming out from his belly and I said, baby you going leave me? He said, ‘No, me ain’t going leave you, make sure you tell them wha going on. You see wha they do me?’”
The ambulance arrived shortly after at the scene, and by that time a large crowd had gathered while Marryshaw was on the ground being assisted by some people who were known to have medical experience.
Browne said she was told that her boyfriend was undergoing emergency surgery when she arrived at the Joseph N. France Hospital.
When SKNVibes visited Marryshaw’s home the day after he was killed, his aunt, who was preparing a meal at the time in the company of a number of women and children, said he had been living at her home from a very young age.
“Akeem ain’t no bad child. He don’t get into trouble, he don’t trouble nobody…people always trouble him and maybe he reacts. He ain’t in no gang. He’s the type of person who like to make jokes,” she said.
One of the women in the room said the shooting on Monday was not his first altercation with the police officer, and that the officer had beaten him on one occasion.
“Akeem has manners; he would always say good morning to people. He was his mother’s heartstring and now he’s taken away from her,” she said.
His girlfriend said that she cried most of the time on Monday and felt as if it was her fault that he died.
“When I cry, everyone telling me I must stop crying, but why should I stop crying? I know why I’m crying. Why should I hold it in? I inside his room, I just hear something whispering in my ear. I turn to my friend and ask her if she talking to me, but she said no.
“He wrote a lot of stuff on his wall in his room and door. He called me Baby Nice. He would write pages of stuff to me and he use to like to sing and he made everyone laugh,” she said.
She said Marryshaw had attended Beach Allen Primary School and Washington Archibald High School, noting that he had loved listening to the music of Vybz Kartel and Movado and used to find comfort in playing with the edges of certain things.
“He liked to play with the edges of stuff, like a top or cloth. His favorite colour was purple and his dream was to have a family of his own with me, and he wanted to have a daughter,” she added.
SKNVibes learnt that Marryshaw celebrated his 18th birthday on October 12 and enjoyed food from a place near his home called Culture.
“When he got paid he would give me and his aunt money. He loved to dance and he would dance Masquerade,” she said.
Browne said her boyfriend had asked her from time to time how she would feel if he died.
“I said, how I gon feel? You is me everything. And he would say I’m his heart.”
Reminiscing on the treatment she received during the times they were together, Browne said, “He would go to work for nine, come home, have lunch, hug me, kiss me and at times talk about what we gon do for the weekend. He was looking forward to Carnival and he wanted me to go into a carnival troupe.”
She also claimed that Marryshaw was not a member of any gang in St. Kitts but was labelled.
“Because he used to speak to certain people that were in gangs, he was labelled. He was not the type to interfere with people. When I looked into my baby’s eyes I saw that he wasn’t gonna make it,” she said.
Browne alleged that the police officer shot her boyfriend at close range.
“The police did not shoot him from far. He shot him from close up. How would you think a young man like that would want to go against a big man like that police officer? Does it make sense?”
Speaking yesterday (Dec. 8) with Marryshaw’s father, Dennis Mervin Boddie, he said his son would never attack a police officer.
“I’m hurting…my son would never attack a police. Akeem is a quiet, humble child. I spoke to him the Sunday night before the day he was killed and told him Christmas coming and that we were going to lime. He told me okay daddy.
“Up to now the police have not called me to say anything. We had to go to them. They are saying they’re not responsible for his death and cannot assist with his funeral expense. I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said.
According to the Police Press and Public Relations Officer, Inspector Vaughan Henderson, the matter is under investigation and depending on the outcome of the evidence “a Police Disciplinary Tribunal may or may not be held”.
“If the officer who is investigating is of the opinion of a prima facie, he can ask for a Coroner’s Inquest to be held,” Henderson told SKNVibes when asked for a comment.
In terms of the Use of Force Policy, Henderson said a police officer could use deadly force to defend his life or the life of another in the execution of his duty.
