The Police Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting investigations into the alleged suicide of Tiffon Peters while in police custody for simple larceny at the East Ruimveldt Police Outpost yesterday.
According to a police press release, Peters, 22 years of 664 Avocado Place, East Ruimveldt, Georgetown was found hanging in the lockups by his shirt which he fashioned into a noose. Another prisoner had alerted officers when he was awakened from his sleep by Peters gasping.
Peters’ parents were last night shocked to learn of their son’s death with the young man’s mother recalling that she arrived at the East Ruimveldt Police Outpost to bring her son soup and his medication. She recalled that there was confusion at the outpost with police refusing at first to brief her on what had transpired.
When the dead man’s mother arrived at the outpost she told Stabroek News it was after 20:00 hrs. According to the police press release, Peters’ body would have been discovered at approximately 19:30hrs.
His father told Stabroek News that the outpost is a small room with the lockups adjacent to where the officers would be seated and he could not comprehend how his son was able to fashion a noose and hang himself on the grill work while officers would have been a few feet away. He expressed frustration that his wife had be told of his son’s death in that manner when the police had found his body prior and could have notified the family considering that their residence is just minutes away.
The police said in the release that Peters was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation where he was pronounced dead on arrival. However, the deceased’s family is contesting this, with his mother stating that she glimpsed the body at the outpost prior to the body being removed by the hearse.
Peters had been taken into custody on Wednesday following an investigation of simply larceny of $25,000 committed on a Houston, EBD woman at Vlissengen Road and Mandela Avenue, Georgetown.
Over the last decade there have been a number of hangings in police cells, raising questions about police supervision and attention to prisoners.
