Warren Welcome who alleged that he was terribly beaten by police in Port Kaituma is disappointed at the sloth with which the matter is being investigated.
The 31-year-old of Port Kaituma was allegedly assaulted on November 20 by two police officers, one of whom he has identified by name, following a complaint by two women.
He was brought to the Georgetown Public Hospital last Tuesday where he had an operation for the internal injuries he reportedly sustained at the hands of the officers.
He had to get “his belly bus to fix a hole … through which fluid was leaking.”
On Monday at the GPH Welcome said he was feeling much better but was disappointed that the police had not visited to take his statement even after he had gone public with his story.
With a bandage across his abdomen, Welcome said he saw two police officers visiting the hospital on Sunday but they went to another man opposite his bed and took a statement.
When contacted on Monday ‘E & F’ Division Commander David Ramnarine said, “Tomorrow [yesterday] a detective will visit Welcome and I trust that he is in a position to give a statement.”
When the news item was published on Saturday, the commander told this newspaper that the alleged victim of the assault was visited by two detectives on Friday afternoon.
Yesterday when this newspaper visited Welcome once again he said that police had still not showed up to take his statement.
In the meantime, “a senior investigator was dispatched to the Port Kaituma District conducting an investigation,” Ramnarine added.
Welcome told this newspaper last Friday that on the night of the incident he was at the Harris Disco in Port Kaituma speaking to a young lady when a woman came up and tried to break up the conversation. The man said that he objected to what the woman was trying to do and uttered obscenities at her.
He said that he later went into the disco where he started dancing with someone and the same woman came up and continued her behaviour. Welcome said that the woman was later joined by another and they started interfering with him and again he cursed at them. According to Welcome, the two women made a report to the police who were nearby and the ranks took him away from the disco. While they were near the station, he said, the constable (name given) started cuffing him while shouting “yall does wan people kill yall or what?” He said that the other ranks threw “one one cuff.” The beating, he said, continued for about three minutes while he also sustained close range cuffs to his belly and face, after which he was thrown into the lockups.
The following night he was released from custody and went home. On Monday he went to the Port Kaituma Hospital since the home treatment he was receiving was not working.
He said that the medical staff at the hospital advised him to travel to Georgetown since they could not determine what was wrong with him. He informed this newspaper that the Port Kaituma Hospital does not have an X-ray machine.
