A thirty-seven-year-old man who resides at One Mile, Wismar, Linden says he was beaten by police at the Wismar Police Station on Tuesday night and threatened.
Carl Canterbury told Stabroek News that on Tuesday around 2.30 pm that he had just received a medical report form from the Mackenzie Police Station and was taking it to be filled out by a medical practitioner at the Linden Hospital Complex.
Canterbury said he had a disagreement with his cousin around 11 hrs. on Tuesday. He said he slapped his cousin sometime later – around 19 hrs. –the police arrested him around 22.30 hrs, took him to the Wismar Police Station and beat him up. He said one of the police officers told him that the woman he had slapped was his family and if she reported any other incident of being physically abused by Canterbury, he would take Canterbury on the back road and shoot him.
When asked if he knew the name of the policeman, who had threatened him, Canterbury answered in the negative but added that he could identify him. Canterbury said he was not charged by the police but after he was beaten, the police ordered him to apologise to his cousin. Canterbury said that after he apologised, the police ordered him to leave the police compound.
He said when he reported the incident to the Commandant of the E Division at the Mackenzie Police Station around noon on Wednesday, the Commandant spoke nicely to him. He said the Commandant advised him to give a statement to an officer “downstairs” at the station and to obtain a medical report. “The man talk to me nice. The man say he gon look into the matter because he getting nuff complain ‘bout police brutality and them kinda thing and he ain’t able tolerate that,” Canterbury said. Canterbury was accompanied by his reputed wife, Silvia Braithwaite, who said the cousin has been creating feuds with her for years. Braithwaite said she has made several reports to the Welfare Office in Linden about the cousin’s attitude but nothing has been done to curb it.
