BOTH Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and dancehall DJ Desmond Ballentyne, who calls himself ‘Ninja Man’, yesterday denied a claim by Commissoner Francis Forbes that the hand-over of an illegal gun by the entertainer on the morning of December 27 at the Sting concert was staged.

Both men were studio guests on TVJ’s Exposure yesterday afternoon.

Forbes had told Montego Bay businessmen Friday that the hand-over was staged and it was not a performance that he wished to see repeated.

The police commissioner, who called the programme after the denial by Adams and Ninja man, however, insisted that the intention for Ninja Man to hand over the gun prior to his performance was discussed with at least two police officers more senior than Adams. He admitted that neither Adams nor Ninja Man may “truthfully” have been aware of the discussions.

“Sometimes things happen above the levels of the main players,” Forbes said on the television programme.

The police commisisoner said the discussions with a “very very senior officer” were that Ninja Man would take a toy gun but that prior to the event a real firearm that he was taking with him would be handed over to the police.

“I was advised by an officer much senior to Mr Adams that he was called by a player, not Ninja Man to discuss the possibility of the hand-over taking place. And the plot at the time was that Ninja Man would have handed over the gun prior to going into his performance and that what he would carry on stage would be a toy gun and that he would do the public handing over of the toy gun. Obviously somebody switched the play and the real gun was brought,” Forbes said.

The police commissioner admitted that the plot backfired and that persons could have been hurt as a result.

“It could have backfired. It could have been discharged. Persons could have got hurt and we would not have agreed to something like that happening if that was what had been discussed.”

While officially there was no gun amnesty, officers had a discretion and had been advised to exercise it where a citizen wanted to hand over a firearm, Forbes said.

However, Ninja Man said on the programme that the government should consider a gun amnesty.

“The Government needs to take my gesture seriously and start handing out amnesty because I can tell the commissioner, I can tell the judge from my experience. Prison has no chance of changing a man from being a criminal. Sending him to the prison only mek him be a better criminal when him come out here and let him be a more illiterate and a dark person who goes in as a human being and comes out as a barbarian and a cannibal,” the entertainer said.