– family calls for assailants arrest
The family of a 29-year-old man, who was badly beaten after being accused of stealing a hammer and a water pump, is questioning why the police have not arrested the couple reportedly responsible for brutalising him last Monday evening.
Lying on a mattress at his Albouystown home with his right arm and left leg from his hip down enclosed in Plaster of Paris, Keith Bowen winced in pain as he told Stabroek News of his ordeal and appealed for justice.
According to the young man, he was on Saffon Street, Charlestown when he was approached by two people in a car. The man is said to be a taxi driver and the woman a nurse and they reportedly forced Bowen into the car informing him that they received information that he had broken and entered their home.
Bowen said they took him to their home at Punt Trench Dam, Albouystown, where both of them dealt him several blows about his body until he fell to the ground.
“After I couldn’t walk, dem pick me up and carry me to the station,” the man said. At the Ruimveldt Police Station, he said, when the police saw his condition, they helped him up the station’s stairs and briefly placed him to sit on a bench inside.
However, he said, about half an hour later, the police there took him to the Brickdam Police Station. He said the officers at that station were reluctant to take him because of his condition. That was late Monday night. Early Tuesday morning, he was taken back to the Ruimveldt Police Station and officers there took him to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre on the East Bank Demerara for treatment. There, health personnel tended his injuries and cast his arm in Plaster of Paris. They then told the police to take him to the Georgetown Public Hospital to treat his leg and his ribs, which were bruised.
However, he said, the police took him back to the Ruimveldt Police Station and placed him to lie downstairs, as he could no longer use his feet.
According to Bowen’s mother, she saw the Punt Trench Dam woman on Monday night and the woman told her that Keith had stolen her hammer and water pump and they had taken him to the station.
“I say if dem take him to the station that is the best place to tek he because let the law deal with it,” the mother said.
However, on Tuesday, she received a call from an officer at the Ruimveldt Police Station who enquired if she was Keith Bowen’s mother. When she responded in the affirmative, she said, she was told to pick him up at the station.
When she got there, Bowen’s mother said, she found her son lying downstairs outside the station. Attempts to get answers from the police officers at the station proved to be futile.
The mother said she then took her son to the Georgetown Hospital, where he was treated and had his leg cast in Plaster of Paris. His ribs were looked at and it was ruled that they were just bruised. The man lifted up his jersey and showed Stabroek News the other marks of violence he suffered at the hands of the couple.
His mother said that she has not seen the woman or the man since Monday night, but she is calling on the police to charge them for the violent assault of her son.
Stabroek News contacted Commander of ‘A’ Division, Assistant Commissioner Leroy Brummel, who said that he knew nothing of the incident.
“If dem say he thief the hammer then let de law deal with it. But why dem have to beat him like dis? I not saying he did not thief it. But let de law deal with it,” the man’s mother said.
Bowen’s relatives said he smokes cocaine and they suspect that because that is known in the area, he was accused of breaking and entering the couple’s home. According to them, the two people claimed that their home was broken into and persons told them that the young man was seen in the vicinity of the house.
Bowen has since denied stealing from the couple and he is appealing for the couple to be charged with assault. He is also appealing for a pair of crutches to aid in his mobility. (Oluatoyin Alleyne)
