The Guyana Police Force has launched an investigation into allegations levelled at a police officer at the Providence Police Station by a woman, who says she was assaulted by the rank in the presence of her young children after trying to report an accident.
Ali Williams had gone to the station to report a minor accident last Saturday and it was after she refused to leave her car overnight that she was allegedly manhandled by the officer, according to a post about the incident on her Facebook page.
According to a senior police officer, the rank has since been removed from the Providence Police Station to the Brickdam Police Station as police investigate the allegation made against him. He also said that the woman has since given a statement detailing the alleged assault to the police.
According to Williams, she was driving to work on Saturday when an unfortunate fender-bender started what was to be one of the most humiliating days of her life. She says that she drove to the Providence Police Station to report the accident. By her count, she waited for more than 20 minutes before she was given any attention by the ranks at the station.
Williams says that a rank from the station, after being asked if anyone was going to take her statement seeing that she had two children with her, told her that he had to mop the office floor before he tended to her. “When he was good and ready, he asked for my vehicle documents, which he handed to another officer as he asked my name, I asked if it was necessary to have me waiting so long,” Williams wrote on her page.
The woman says her question seemed to irritate another officer, who asked the officer who was dealing with her matter if she was obstructing the flow of traffic at the time of the accident. Williams says the apparently peeved officer suggested to his colleague that he charge Williams for such, and impound her vehicle pending an investigation into the accident.
Williams says that she was taken into the station’s compound where she was told to park her car to allow the officers to inspect the damage. She complied up to the point that the officer who inspected the vehicle – the same one who she said had to finish his mopping before she dealt with her case – asked her to hand over her key. She refused since the officer could give no reasonable explanation why she needed to lodge her vehicle.
As she continued to refuse to surrender her key, the woman said that she returned to the bench in the station with her two children.
“He further told me when I was ready to hand over my keys, I should tell him, and again I refused unless he could say why. I proceeded to make a call to family informing them what was happening and where I was. Officer (name given) then grabbed me by my arm, pulled me up from the bench, dragging me more than 10 feet while ringing my hand to take away my personal phone, then chucking me to sit on the station bench like a common criminal IN THE PRESENCE TO MY TWO CRYING CHILDREN, who couldn’t understand why mommy was being abused by a Police [whose] job is to PROTECT US,” Williams lamented.
Ironically enough, the incident occurred on International Women’s Day—a day which Williams noted is meant to “celebrate, appreciate, respect and show love towards women.”
