Al­most eight years af­ter five men were shot dead by po­lice near their Laven­tille homes, the State has been or­dered to pay their fam­i­lies more than $4 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

In a re­cent judg­ment, High Court Judge Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar award­ed dam­ages to the fam­i­lies of Mechack Dou­glas, Sha­keem Fran­cois, Shaun­dell St Clair, Nicholas Bark­er and Kudiem Phillip, up­hold­ing claims for as­sault and bat­tery and mis­fea­sance in pub­lic of­fice against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The fam­i­lies claimed that on Oc­to­ber 25, 2018, Dou­glas, 22, was lim­ing, lis­ten­ing to mu­sic and play­ing cards with friends be­hind a home at Up­per Whar­ton Street, Trou Macaque Road, Laven­tille, when of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) en­tered the prop­er­ty, taunt­ed him and shot him in the chest.