“I couldn’t hesitate because I don’t encourage certain things. If you do a crime you have to face the time,” the mother of a 16-year-old boy who escaped from the Cove and John Police Station yesterday said after returning him to custody.
The 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested a few days ago in ‘B’ Field, Sophia after he was found with an unlicensed gun and ammunition and was being held at the Cove and John Police station. However, yesterday morning the boy escaped from the station but was subsequently returned by his mother who found him after a thorough search.
Speaking to Stabroek News last night, the boy’s mother said that she did not hesitate to turn her son in to the police since she does not encourage “certain things.”
“I speaking to that child all the time. I want to sleep good at night. I don’t want police to beat me for children. The best thing I think was to turn he back where he gotto go. I tell he that you have to go to court and face the consequences for the things you doing on the road. I am a businesswoman and I wouldn’t like if somebody come and rob me,” the woman said.
She explained that on Saturday night she visited the Police Station to take dinner for her son when an officer explained to her that the Sophia teen was asking frequently to be taken to the washroom.
“I said I’m his mother and what you should do is give him a plastic bag, a box or a bottle and let him remain in the cell,” she said.
After delivering his dinner the woman explained that she left the police station but subsequently turned back after she realized she had left something there. After she returned to the police station she said she noticed a young constable at the door and after engaging him in a conversation she warned him to be wary of her son.
“I explain to he that he’s a young police and I like that he doing his job and not to let nobody put he in it. I seh you see that lil boy that want to go to the toilet, tell your fellow workers that working tonight to watch this boy properly, don’t let him go in the toilet,” Johnson said.
She explained that she left and returned home and it wasn’t until yesterday morning when a van load of police stopped at her shop and started to cross the dam in the direction of where her other son was that she realized something was wrong. She said that a scuffle started between her other son and a police officer. After the situation was contained, the police requested to search their house again but found nothing. After the police finished searching the house they took her other son to the Sparendaam police station.
The woman explained that while she was on her way to the police station she saw another van rushing towards where she lives and her suspicions grew even more. She then decided to turn the car around and followed the police and was stopped half way through ‘B’ Field.
“They stop me car halfway and they call me and when I go over the road he said ‘muds where your son’ so I explain that he was taken to the police station but they said not that one. Since they said he get away I blackout and fall down on the road and when I catch meself I notice the same [young] police I talk to at the station and I asked he to tell the one in charge what I tell he last night [Saturday] and he did,” she said.
The woman said that after she was done talking to the police she returned home where she was told by one of her friends that the boy was spotted around Stabroek Square. She said she then jumped into a car and sped away to the location but figured that he might not be there anymore and might have gone to his father’s residence in Albouystown.
After checking Stabroek Square and Albouystown the woman was unable to find her son. However, that did not deter her search and she continued.
“I tell he grandmother and so and we go by Big Market (Stabroek Market) and I search all over. I didn’t see he and when I de coming back home I see this boy limping on the road and I tell the car man to hold on and when I see it was he I grabble he and I push he in the car,” she said.
After she returned with the boy home she explained that she was able to get some assistance in organizing for the Commander of ‘C’ Division Edmond Cooper and Crime Chief Paul Williams to visit the house and take him back into custody.
“When the Crime Chief come they come in and I show them he and a police lift he out and I talk to the police,” the woman said, while stating that even though it was hard for her to do, it was the right thing since she does not condone criminal activities, even if her own son is involved.
The Sophia teen has since been taken back into police custody and is expected to appear in court to answer a charge of armed robbery.
