A former army officer is fearful for his life after he says he was almost forced into a private car by two individuals in the city yesterday afternoon.
Walter Kendall, 25, a student of the Kuru Kuru Cooperative College on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway told Stabroek News last evening that he was walking past the entrance of the City Mall, in the vicinity of Camp and Regent streets yesterday afternoon, when he was attacked by an unknown man.
According to Kendall, he had moments earlier visited relatives in the Alberttown area and he was on his way home to Hadfield Street, Werk-en-Rust when the incident occurred. He said that he was walking south along Camp Street and as he approached the traffic lights at the junction yesterday, “a man come running up from behind me saying hold he deh.”
He said he turned around and smiled at the person, noting that he believed at the time that someone was pulling a practical joke. He said the individual, whom he described as “burly” and who moments before got out of a blue Nissan Cube sedan, held onto his clothing and began to level accusations against him.
“He said I try to have sex with he sister and when I look up I see this girl who I use to talk to before behind he,” he said. Kendall noted that he met the young woman through the “Lonely Hearts” television programme, which once aired on a local television station in 2003. He noted, however, that he only met her once on a blind date.
According to the worried man, as his accuser attempted to “drag” him into the car, he alerted two police officers who were waiting to cross the street. The entire episode occurred around 5:30pm in full view of passers-by and taxi drivers in the vicinity. He said that one of the officers (name given) asked him if he knew the man and the young woman and according to him, he explained to the cops that he met the young woman several years ago but spoke to her briefly in person back then.
He said the officers then braced him against a vehicle and searched him while one of the ranks got onto a mobile phone, which the young woman had in her possession. “This thing look funny because she call somebody and then hand the police the phone and he was talking to the person,” Kendall explained.
He said that the ranks then placed him at the back of the blue Nissan car told him that they were taking him to the Brickdam Police Station. He said that he protested the move, noting that as a former army rank, the police should have taken him to the station either on foot or in a police vehicle.
According to Kendall, he nevertheless complied and the driver drove the car along Camp Street towards Brickdam and “as the vehicle head towards South Road these policemen said they taking me to Campbellville, where the man said he gat a gun and he gun deal with me case.”
He said the car then headed east along South Road. Along the way, Kendall noted, he pleaded with the officers as well as the driver of the car and the young lady who sat in the front seat of the vehicle to let him go. ”I tell them I am well known I am a UNDP-sponsored student at the Kuru Kuru College and I even tell them I use to work in the Public Relations department at Camp Ayanganna and if I disappear people gon want to know where I deh,” he said.
Kendall noted that the ranks then radioed the Brickdam Police Station and the car subsequently headed in that direction. He said that on the way to the police station, the young woman changed her story and said that she did not wish to proceed with the allegations she made earlier. “They take me and her in, make I sign a statement to the effect that the girl accuse me of something and then change her story,” he said.
Meantime, he said the man who accosted him earlier sat outside the police station in his car. “I couldn’t believe what was happening because a man try to force me in a car, seh he gon shoot me and a young lady made a false allegation against me and they jus let them loose,” he added. He said that when the ranks called out for the man, “somebody said how he gone and buy a food.”
He noted that on Tuesday afternoon, he was walking along Regent Street when he spotted the young lady walking out of a store. “We jus talk a little and I told her that I move on with life and that I plan to get married soon,” he recalled.
He said that after speaking to the young woman for less than five minutes, he continued walking along the street. “I had on this rare gem on my ear and it cost a lot of money so I dunno if that’s what she and this guy were after but it [the episode] really startled me,” he said.
Kendall also said that the police ranks at the Brickdam Police Station took a mobile phone and a camera after body searching him yesterday but he noted that only the camera was returned to him. He said that he plans to report his experience to the army, since according to him “is just sloppy police work or I dunno if those ranks plan this thing with the two individuals.” Kendall noted too that he will be visiting the Police Complaints Authority to air his concerns.
According to Kendall, after spending three years in the army, he decided to enrol at the tertiary institution after participating in the Youth Entrepreneurial Skills Training programme sponsored by the Ministry of, Culture, Youth and Sport. He said that he has a few more months of study at the institution, following which he hopes to graduate with a diploma in the field of mechanics.
