South Sophia resident Michael ‘Junior’ Halley alleges that he was sent station-hopping during the wee hours of yesterday morning after police refused to take his report about four men damaging his property and stealing a quantity of cash.
Halley of Lot 539 D Field, South Sophia told Stabroek News that some time between 12.45 am and 1 am he was watching cricket in his home, a flat wooden building. The man lives with his 7-year-old son and is an itinerant vendor.
“I hear somebody calling out my name,” Halley recalled, “and I went to the backdoor and I peep out and I see four men out there…they lif’ up my motorbike and throw it down and then start to hit at my house and damage the windows and so.”
The man told Stabroek News that “known characters” in the neighbourhood have been breaking into the homes of residents. The men, according to Halley, had earlier stolen his stereo set.
After he saw the men in his yard, Halley said he told his son to hide and dashed through the other entrance of his home and ran to the Turkeyen Police Station which is located in D Field as well. When he arrived at the station, Halley related, he spoke with a male police corporal who took his name and age and that rank called out back up.
“When the back up come I go with them in the white jeep back towards my house and we see the four men on the street corner and when one of them see the police he start to run but we catch him,” Halley said.
He and the four men, Halley said, were taken to the Turkeyen station and the “back-up officers” left. The corporal, the man alleged, did not take a report from him and told him to return to the station at 9am (yesterday).
“I ask he (the police) if he take the name and so of the four men and he tell me yes and that was the end of that,” the man related.
When he returned home for a second time, this time without the company of police, Halley said that he discovered $65,000 missing from his house.
It was approximately 1.30 am and he decided to report the matter to the Sparendaam Police Station instead since he was not satisfied with the response he got at Turkeyen.
“When I go to Sparendaam station now,” Halley alleged, “there was a lone female officer on duty and she tell me that she wasn’t going to take any report because she was there alone.”
The man then left Sparendaam and headed to the Kitty Police Station where he told a policeman there all that had happened to him that morning.
However, the policeman there contacted the corporal at Turkeyen police station and later told Halley that he would not take a report from him.
Halley said after the refusal at Kitty he returned home and then several hours later he went to the East La Penitence Police Station. While at East La Penitence, the man reported, he spoke with a female inspector who directed him to a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) rank.
The CID rank, according to Halley, explained to him that he would not be able to deal with his matter and directed him to the headquarters of Police C Division at Cove and John. “The CID man tell me that Cove and John is the place to deal with my problem,” Halley related.
This is the third time, according to Halley, that the men have attacked someone in his street. His neighbour who lives across the street, Halley said, lost some items several weeks ago. The same men, he alleged, had broken into his neighbour’s house.
“Me neighbour recognize them and when we go and confront them it was a big story,” Halley said. “One of the man them beat my neighbour and hit my father too.”
Halley said that he is not interested in getting back anything he has lost but he would like to be taken seriously by the police. “All I want is justice budday,” Halley told Stabroek News.
Meanwhile, when contacted about the matter yesterday afternoon Commander of Police C Division Assistant Commissioner Gavin Primo told Stabroek News he was unaware of the issue but would look into it immediately.
