Examining the Tivoli Gardens Gang Bust in Jamaica

In May last year, police forces busted into the gang-controlled Tivoli Gardens neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica.

The raid was highly unusual.

For one thing, a US surveillance plane monitored the operation from the air.

The target was Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, a drug lord wanted for extradition to the US.

He did eventually wind up on trial in New York, where he now faces sentencing for assault and racketeering.

But that raid left more than 70 people dead, and only six guns were recovered, leaving a lot of questions unanswered.

An investigation by the New Yorker magazine suggests there were multiple extra-judicial killings. And the DEA filmed it all.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Mattathias Schwartz, who wrote about the case in the December 12 issue of the New Yorker magazine.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. A police raid in the gang-controlled Tivoli Gardens neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica would normally not make international news, but the raid there in May of last year was highly unusual. For one thing, a US surveillance plane monitored the operation from the air. The target was Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a drug lord wanted for extradition to the US. He did eventually wind up on trial in New York where he now faces sentencing for assault and racketeering, but that raid in 2010 left more than 70 people dead and a lot of questions in its wake. Mattathias Schwartz wrote about the case in the December 12 issue of the New Yorker. The shocking charges of extrajudicial killings are what you focus on in this story. What did you find, did the Jamaican security forces go into Tivoli Gardens and start killing indiscriminately?

Mattathias Schwartz: That is what a lot of people who I found very credible in Tivoli Gardens told me. I was not there, but I did my best to corroborate everything that I heard. And what I came away with were many extremely credible accounts of extrajudicial killings carried out by the Jamaican security forces.

Werman: In your story you focus on one man, this guy Radcliffe Freeman, who grew up with Coke when they were kids. Freeman was killed in the Tivoli Gardens raid, but I’m wondering if you can tell us his story and why you think it’s symbolic of a seeming shoot now ask questions later strategy when the police entered Tivoli Gardens last year.

Schwartz: Yeah, I probably came across you know, at least eight or nine stories like Radcliffe Freeman’s. And I chose his because he had passed a background check to work at the US embassy. So I felt like he had good credentials.

Werman: And he was taken away, seemingly in good shape by the police, and then he ends up dead.

Schwartz: Yeah, I spoke to multiple witnesses who were there who told me that they last saw him in police custody unarmed, sitting on the ground near his home. I spoke to someone who’s familiar with his autopsy, and he was shot more than 10 times. Now one thing I wanna make sure we get to is that the US was involved in this operation, and that’s something that the Jamaican government denied on more than one…

Werman: Well, that’s what I was gonna ask you next because the one other major thing you focus on in the story is this US Homeland Security Department aircraft that was circling above Tivoli Gardens while the Jamaican security forces went in. What was it doing there?

Schwartz: The aircraft was shooting live video of the ground and passing information through officials affiliated with the US embassy, who then passed the information on to Jamaican officials who were partially responsible for the raid. So you know, looking at everything we know, you don’t know for certain whether the US government knew what was gonna happen. It was a very chaotic situation. There had been gunmen in Tivoli Gardens. There were barricades around Tivoli Gardens. But looking at everything we know I mean it’s easy to see how the US government might have been complicit in the death of more than 70 Jamaican citizens, including one US citizen. Now, one very interesting fact about this live video that the plane was shooting of the ground is a copy of this video currently resides, you know, the US government has it, the DEA has a copy and I believe the Department of Homeland Security also has a copy. So, this is live video of the ground in Kingston where this massacre is said by so many people to have taken place. The US government is refusing to release the video even though it could confirm or possibly refute these very disturbing allegations.

Werman: What has the US government said about this plane and the information that it was passing to perhaps the Jamaican authorities?

Schwartz: Well, you know, I have this document that with the New Yorker’s help I was able to secure through the Freedom of Information Act, and it confirms the existence of this plane. It confirms that it was flying above Tivoli Gardens at this place and time. It says you know, it was recording video. It includes the words “all scenes were continuously recorded.” And then you know, I talked to official sources at the DEA and the US State Department and other agencies and they confirmed to me the information was passed from the plane to the Jamaican security officials who you know, had a role in conducting the raids. So again, it’s hard to know at this point exactly who knew what when, but it does appear to me that the US government was providing help and assistance and information to an operation that by all accounts was a massacre.

Werman: Mattathias Schwartz wrote the article A Massacre in Jamaica in the December 12 issues of the New Yorker. Mattathias, thanks very much for speaking with us.

Schwartz: Thank you for having me.

Werman: We contacted a number of US government agencies for comment. The Drug Enforcement Administration replied with a statement; it says that “at no time did any DEA representative make operational decisions as this was a Jamaican government operation.”

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.