‘You must die!’

A police sergeant testified on Friday that he opened gunfire on a knife-wielding male attacker at Pathways International Restoration Ministries in Albion, St James, after the man, who hurled death threats, refused to comply with law enforcers’ orders to drop his weapon.

The cop, who was the fourth witness in the murder trial of Andre Ruddock at the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston, said that the knife-wielding man was rushing from the church towards the police and using threatening language.

Ruddock is being tried in relation to the October 17, 2021 killing of 39-year-old Taneka Gardner, whose throat was cut, allegedly by the accused, at the church in what has been described as a human sacrifice ritual. Ruddock was said to have been acting on the instructions of the pastor of the church, Kevin Smith.