A 30-year-old automotive salesman was yesterday nursing several injuries about his body after he was allegedly beaten by a group of policemen on Friday evening while he was on his way home from work.
Kwesi Smith of Lot 66 William Street, Campbellville told this newspaper yesterday that he was still experiencing excruciating pain to the right side of his body, the result of a beating he received from three police officers who were on patrol at the Stabroek Market area on Friday evening. Efforts to obtain to comment from police officials yesterday were unsuccessful.
Recounting the ordeal, Smith said that he was sitting in the passenger side of a route 48 mini-bus on its way out of the park on Friday evening when another passenger sitting between himself and the driver shouted a derogatory remark to the occupants of a police vehicle which, according to him had disrupted the flow of traffic as the ranks were purchasing phone cards from nearby vendors.
He said as the bus continued on its way from the area, the ranks drove up and instructed the mini-bus driver to pull over. This was around 7:15 that evening in front of the Demico car park, opposite Parliament Buildings.
While noting that he was dressed in the uniform of the company he works for, Automotive Art, Smith said that the ranks instructed the passengers to disembark so that “they could carry out a search” and according to him, while the elderly folks and children were placed in separate lines, he was placed “one side” as one of the officers questioned the whereabouts of, “the man who cuss the police”.
He said as passengers were being searched, the individual who moments earlier shouted at the ranks “disappeared” in a nearby gathering and he noted that he and the driver of the mini-bus pointed this out to the police officers. Smith stated that he was instructed to assume a position to be searched by the officers, all TSU ranks dressed in dark uniform, and as he did so he enquired of the officers why he was being searched. He said the officers then discontinued the search and instructed him to “sit in the vehicle”, even as he enquired of them what he had done wrong.
The man said he was then collared by one of the officers (name provided) and dealt two cuffs to the right side of his face, in full view of the public. He noted that he was crouching during this time and he was attempting to free himself as the officer’s grasp of his collar was choking him. By this time the mini-bus had moved off of the scene.
He said that another officer, who he described as short pulled out a ‘small gun’ and hit him twice behind his head, making him dizzy. He said the officers were all using threatening and indecent language during the ordeal, even as one of the men continued to collar him. He said the third rank, who was driving the vehicle, joined his colleagues, and according to Smith the rank used the butt of his gun to hit him several times in the region of his right rib cage.
Smith noted that it was at this point, about half of an hour into the ordeal, that he decided to enter the vehicle and the ranks drove off from the scene and headed in the direction of the Brickdam Police station. He said as the vehicle crossed the intersection of High Street and Brickdam, one of the ranks whom he noted ‘collared’ him initially, instructed the officer behind the wheels of the vehicle to stop ‘in da dark corner’ in front of Saints Stanislaus College, “so that he could deal with me case”, however the driver continued on the way to Brickdam.
At the station, Smith said that the officers placed him on a bench and subsequently booked him on a charge of resisting arrest. He said at this point a customer of the company with which he works and who had witnessed the ordeal, arrived at the police station and pleaded with the officers to send him (Smith) to the hospital to seek medical attention for the injuries he sustained. He said that the officers then placed him on $5000 station bail and he was given a medical to take along to the hospital. “I made my way from there on my own; they didn’t even provide me with no transportation to the hospital”.
According to a copy of the medical, which was seen by this newspaper, Smith was treated for swelling to the face and according to the man, he was expected to visit another hospital today to have an x-ray done to determine the extent of injuries he sustained to the rib cage, since according to him, he was experiencing a searing pain in the affected area.
He said the day after the incident he visited the Brickdam station to lodge an assault report, during which he delivered the medical provided by the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). He said he was told to return yesterday to have a confrontation with the ranks at 9 am but some two hours later the men could not be found. Smith said that an inspector and a female police sergeant have been particularly helpful to him, noting that the two officers made several checks to determine the location of the three officers.
The father of one stated that he was not going to leave the matter to idle, since according to him, he felt his rights as a citizen to question the police on what grounds he was being arrested, were breached, noting that the beating which followed was testimony to the police, “taking the law into their own hands”. He said he has always been a law-abiding citizen, noting that his parents, both of whom are retired colonels from the Guyana Defence Force, had instilled discipline in him.
Smith said that officers at Brickdam were expected to call him during the course of yesterday afternoon to inform him when the ranks in question would have been available for a confrontation but up to late last evening he had not been contacted.