Last week we told you about Jaime Hermoso Usher, the man who was shot on Thursday night as he stood in front of the Queen's Square Market. Well on Monday, police charged 18-year-old Owen McFoy for his attempted murder. Because it is a firearm offence McFoy has been remanded to prison. That has thrown his family into disarray. Last night his sister came to our studios to say her brother didn't do it. Sounds like a story we've heard many times before, but, trust us, this case if different: last night, the man who got shot Jaime Usher came himself to declare that he didn't even know who shot him, so police must have charged the wrong man. We begin with Owen McFoy's sister Antonette Crawford who told us her brother has an alibi.
Antonette Crawford, Brother Charged for Shooting
"My little boy was with my mom at the time they said that this young man was shot. He was with my mom because a neighbor just came in from the States and they were drinking and we have many alibi witnesses who know that my little brother was there with them. He doesn't know anything about guns. He is a person that deals with sports, very energetic, and the evening with this shooting, when it occurred, he was practicing for Carnival. I just want my little brother to be set free because he is innocent. I just need the quickest way out right now because it's tearing my whole family apart. I have six brothers, the eldest is thirty years old, and they have never been in the hands of a policeman. My mom is a single parent and we grew up well, very well. None of my brothers have ever been in the hands of a policeman and this is destroying my family."
And while the family tries to get bail through the Supreme Court, the shooting victim has his own issue with the charge. In graphic terms, he told us why he is upset.
Jaime Hermoso Usher, Victim of Shooting
"Man if I could have identified somebody I would have told you who he is. I am a fourteen year veteran of the criminal system. I know everybody but this man who shot me came with a ski mask so how could I have identified him? People tell me how I would have identified this man when you already know I am a senior prisoner. I know everybody."
Jules Vasquez,
So then why did they charge this young man?
Jaime Hermoso Usher,
"You know why they charged him, it is because of the corruption everybody is going through. Some people think that we youths from the ghetto are just like that but they can't get the tac or the tic so they put a little boy in front of me and want to prosecute this little boy like I will persecute him. I am tell you from the heart man, they have the wrong man. Believe me if you want people. Its up to unu."
Usher "The Punisher" flatly denied being paid off by McFoy's family.
