Armed with high-powered assault rifles, police weave through traffic until they eventually intercept the car. Then two men, one apparently armed with a gun, dash from the vehicle, leaving it parked with the engine still running, in the middle of a busy highway.
They jump over a nearby chain-link fence, pursued by police officers, and disappear onto a moderately busy street where commuters were making their way home or to local bars and restaurants at the end of the work week.
It might sound like a scene from a clichéd Hollywood feature film, but for Doug Dodds* and dozens of other onlookers, this was as real as it gets.
A white Toyota Yaris speeds away from a late afternoon police checkpoint, leaving tyre marks and exhaust fumes, as officers rush to their tactical SUVs… and so, the pursuit begins.
The armed pursuit came at the end of a week in which two murders were committed in Grand Cayman, already putting the island on edge.
“I’ve never seen anything like this or witnessed anything like this; it looked like… a scene out of an action movie,” said Dodds, who said he was still in disbelief several days after of the events of the night of Friday, 29 April.
“The Firearms Response Unit, these guys are straight out of central casting… big, huge, muscular guys with the bulletproof jackets and everything. It looked like a movie was being shot, and the guys were racing out,” he said.
The manhunt begins
With the suspects loose and potentially armed, police called for back-up. Within minutes, the K-9 unit and additional armed officers were on the scene and the pursuit re-ignited.
The chase led police to Lizard Run, off West Bay Road and to a set of private waterfront condos on Seven Mile Beach. There, officers caught sight of the one of the suspects and fired a shot – no one was injured, but police cleared that stretch of the beach.
“Never thought I’d see the day when I had to evacuate Seven Mile Beach due to a gunman,” wrote one resident on social media, who requested their identity not be disclosed.
She continued, “[I] heard the shot [and] thought, surely it’s a firework, not a gun, but then there were armed police everywhere asking if the guy had come through and telling us to clear the beach, which meant going very fast back to the apartment in the direction they may well have been coming.”
A short time later, police arrested one man: 20 year old Eric Brian Williams Soto. He has appeared in court, charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition.
He made an initial Summary Court appearance on 2 May, where he was remanded into custody after an unsuccessful bail application.
He is scheduled to return to court on 9 May.
The search widens
After failing to capture the other suspect on the beach, officers returned inland, where they widened their search.
“They were searching cars, looking in trunks one at a time, looking in the backseats, looking through some of these vehicles,” said Dodds.
For the better part of that evening, Cayman Compass staff and hundreds of others witnessed West Bay Road and the Esterley Tibbetts Highway backed up with long lines of traffic, as a convoy of armed units converged on various locations.
At one of the scenes, Compass staff witnessed police, with assault rifles drawn, approach a vehicle in the parking lot of a hotel, demand the driver park and exit. She was taken a few feet away and patted down as officers searched the trunk of her vehicle.
Despite their efforts, the second suspect was not apprehended that night, and as of press time, 5 May, remained at large.
Police have named him as Justin Kyle Jackson.
Armed and dangerous
On 22 April, police said they were seeking Jackson, who had been released from HMP Northward on the conditional release programme. However, he is alleged to have violated the terms of that release, and police issued a recall.
The RCIPS, in a second statement on 30 April, said they believed Jackson to be “armed and dangerous”, and advised members of the public not to approach him, but to alert police instead.
Police are reminding the public that if they are caught assisting a wanted individual, they risk being charged with aiding and abetting, which carries a financial penalty and or a term of imprisonment of up to 10 years.
‘I still feel safe’
Despite the high drama, Dodds and other residents say they still feel safe.
“Police are doing all they can and, quite frankly, I still feel safe,” said Dodds. “This is a small island and a wanted person can only hide for so long. So, I’m sure that police, with the assistance of the public, will soon find him.”
“It’s scary to think that crime is physically creeping into so many parts of the community, but I do feel safe, and police seem to have the matter under control,” said another witness who lives near the beach and had been ordered indoors by police during the manhunt.
*Editor’s Note: Doug Dodds who has been quoted in this article is an employee of Compass Media.
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