Mother cries as son is found guilty on firearm charge
A 43 YEAR-OLD MAN left his mother whimpering and in tears after he was found guilty for being in possession of a firearm with intent to injure, and for shooting a man three times in his foot.
Ronald ‘John Small’ Isaacs and his mother shared an emotional embrace on July 18, 2024, after a nine-member jury found him guilty that on February 24, 2022, he was in his possession a firearm with intent to injure; and he used the firearm to wound Philroy Matthews with intent.
“I is a man of truth. I plead guilty if I wrong,” Isaacs said, when he was given the opportunity to address the jury at the High Court before Justice Brian Cottle.
He added that he doesn’t know how he got charged for these offences and that they were “wrongfully” laid against him. “I’m innocent of this crime…” he told the jury.
In his summation of the prosecution’s case, Cottle said that Matthews was at a bar. When his girlfriend went to pick him up in a vehicle, Isaacs cursed her because she shone her headlamp in his face.
Matthew’s girlfriend told Isaacs that it was night time and she needed to see. The two became engaged in a heated verbal exchange.
Matthews, his girlfriend, and a passenger who was in the vehicle at the time of the incident testified that Isaacs was wearing a red shirt and a white pants that night.
He said Isaacs held onto a door of the vehicle so he confronted Isaacs and told him that the woman is his girlfriend.
The men pushed each other and an altercation broke out. Matthews then left with his girlfriend and headed home to Murray’s Village.
While his girlfriend was in the house, she overheard her boyfriend having an interesting conversation with his two friends on the road.
She went to the window to eavesdrop and saw a man with a cardboard box on his head approaching Matthews and his friends.
She noticed that the man was Isaacs. She said Isaacs dropped the box, pulled out something that looked like a gun and fired several shots at her boyfriend. Matthews scrambled to evade the bullets, but sustained three gunshot wounds to his right leg.
Isaacs then released two more shots in the air. Matthews felt a hole in his leg. He was taken to a Healthcare centre where he was treated and discharged.
Matthews said that he did not expect anything to come from that incident.
Though Isaacs chose not to give evidence during his trial, his sister testified on his behalf.
She said that she did not know where Isaacs was on the day of the offence, and that no police questioned her about the matter.
Isaacs told the jury to note that the prosecution’s witnesses did not swear by the Bible, while her sister did. In his electronic interview with the police, which lasted 10 minutes, Isaacs said that he did not know Matthews, and that he argued with a girl because she shone her headlamp in his face.
Isaacs said that there was no altercation that night, and that after the verbal exchange with the woman, he spent the night monitoring his sister’s shop as there was a recent break-in.
He said that he was wearing an orange shirt and a black pants that night, not a red shirt and white pants. However, after three hours and 13 minutes of deliberating, eight members of the nine-member jury returned guilty verdicts for the offences of wounding with intent, and possession of a firearm with intent to injure.
After he was convicted, Isaacs asked the judge to be lenient with him. He said he has six children, all of whom he takes care of. He also said that he takes care of his brother’s children, as well as his mother, who seemed overwhelmed with sadness after the guilty verdicts were handed.
Isaacs will be sentenced next week Friday, July 26, 2024.
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