Trinidad: Father in custody for school fight

(Trinidad Guardian) The 34-year-old fa­ther who al­leged­ly struck a Form Three stu­dent at the Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School is in po­lice cus­tody.

While his rel­a­tives await to hear from the po­lice whether or not he will be charged, they are dis­put­ing the cir­cum­stances of the in­ci­dent last Wednes­day.

 
In­stead, they claimed the fa­ther was de­fend­ing him­self af­ter he was at­tacked by the Form Three stu­dent and six oth­er boys on the school com­pound.

The fa­ther’s broth­er, a pun­dit, said ear­li­er that day his nephew, age 13, a Form Two stu­dent, was at­tacked, beat­en and robbed of his mon­ey by the Form Three stu­dent and his friends.

Dur­ing the at­tack, he said his nephew re­ceived in­juries to his face and his phone was de­stroyed.

The rel­a­tive claimed this in­ci­dent was the fifth time that his nephew was at­tacked by those boys. On two oc­ca­sions the po­lice came to the school and warned the boys. How­ev­er, he com­plained that the bul­ly­ing con­tin­ued with noth­ing be­ing done by school of­fi­cials to stop the at­tacks on his nephew.

The man said while he was in­side the of­fice speak­ing to the dean, his broth­er and nephew were out­side the of­fice.

“Some of my nephew’s friends told the fa­ther that the guys who beat him his son wait­ing for him by the gate. My broth­er is a small fel­lah so they prob­a­bly take him for his broth­er and de­cid­ed to jos­tle him.”

He said his broth­er was talk­ing to the boys when all of a sud­den there was a scuf­fle and the two fe­male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers ran off. When the boys saw him ap­proach­ing in his van, they fled but while they were leav­ing the com­pound, the boys threw stones at the van.

The rel­a­tive said they all went to the Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion where his broth­er and nephew made a re­port. The po­lice ad­vised them to seek med­ical at­ten­tion and get a med­ical cer­tifi­cate.

He said his broth­er suf­fered a dis­lo­cat­ed shoul­der.

But around 3 pm on Fri­day, the man said, the po­lice came to his broth­er’s home and ar­rest­ed him.

“Up to now they still say­ing that he is be­ing held on in­quiries.” He He com­plained about the con­flict­ing in­for­ma­tion and treat­ment met­ted out to them by the po­lice.

He said an of­fi­cer told them his broth­er was charged yes­ter­day morn­ing and to go to the mag­is­trate’s court.

They paid a lawyer $1,500 to rep­re­sent him.

How­ev­er, his moth­er re­ceived a call from an­oth­er of­fi­cer ask­ing whether or not they were bring­ing clothes for him at the sta­tion. The of­fi­cer told them he was not charged.

The broth­er said the po­lice should have done the nec­es­sary in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pa­per­work be­fore they ar­rest­ed the fa­ther.

“We were told that 9 o’clock this morn­ing they went to get a re­port from the school. So why they did not do the in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­fore they ar­rest him. We want to know who will ar­rest the chil­dren who beat up my nephew,” said the broth­er.

 
He was al­so con­cerned about the safe­ty of his son who at­tends the same school as the teach­ers are afraid to dis­ci­pline the stu­dents. This was con­firmed by a school of­fi­cial who plead­ed to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to in­ter­vene as they too are afraid for their safe­ty.