A 71-year-old retiree is calling on the Guyana Police Force to explain why members of the SWAT team with guns in hands stormed into to his apartment building two months ago, ransacked it and then left without an explanation.
Dr Cyril Kendall recently told the Stabroek News that the August 5 incident has left his 13-year-old son traumatised and he also believes that the ranks infected him with the COVID-19 virus.
“They were spitting and driveling all over the place with no masks on and I believe they infected me with the virus because I tested positive after,” the man said.
He said he reported the matter to the Police Force’s Office of Professional Responsibility on August 9 and was promised that he would get a report within 30 days. That time has elapsed and Dr Kendall said he has been unable to get an update from the investigating personnel.
Contacted on the issue, head of the force’s communication office, Mark Ramotar, told Stabroek News that the only update he can offer at this time is that the matter is still being investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility.
“I would like an explanation because I am still to understand why this was done,” the affected retiree told this newspaper, while noting the recent shooting of Dartmouth businessman Orin Boston.
Boston was shot and killed by members of the SWAT team as he laid in his bed sleeping.
According to Dr Kendall, who said he is a retired forensic examiner, on the evening of August 5, about six to ten men with guns scaled the fence of the gated Haynes Apartment Building Complex in Campbellville and broke down his apartment door and entered. He claimed that other apartments were similarly invaded.
He said initially he was unaware as to who the men were as they were not attired in the regular police uniform and while some had SWAT emblazoned on their clothes, at the time he was unaware that there was such a police squad in Guyana.
“I didn’t know if they were thieves, I didn’t know who they were. When they came in I was sitting on the chair in just my briefs and my wife had just come out of the bathroom wrapped only in her towel. I don’t know what happened but the towel went and she was lying on the floor, bottom up, with me and my son,” the man recalled.
He said he asked the men who they were and what they wanted but he got no response.
“They were cursing and carrying on as they ransacked the place and when they found nothing they left saying that they have to go and call the boss,” the man said.
He later learnt that they had invaded other apartments as well.
According to Dr Kendall when the men left, his young son was passed out on the floor.
He said the following morning he reported the matter to the Kitty Police Station and even then he was not informed that the men were lawmen, however, the sergeant in charge promised to have ranks visit the complex to investigate.
No such visit occurred.
He was later advised to visit the Police Complaints Authority on Brickdam, and did so in the company of his landlord. It was there he was told that the men were members of the police force and he was advised to visit to Office of Professional Responsibility.
This was done on August 9 and he also learnt that the team is headed by Assistant Superintendent Mitchell Caesar. Statements were taken and he was told that the investigation would be completed within thirty days.
That time has since elapsed and Kendall said he is still awaiting an update and all attempts to get one have proven futile. His landlord has since been forced to fix the broken doors and while most of the other affected residents have since returned to the US, the retiree said he wants an explanation as why he was treated in such a manner.
“Look what happened to Mr. Boston. We cannot accept these things, I have done nothing wrong to be treated in that manner,” he said.
“I am so upset because they left me with COVID-19 and they left my son passed out on the floor and nobody is doing anything about it,” he lamented.
The retiree said he is a Guyanese by birth but a US-citizen and he has been residing at the apartment for just about a year.
Kendall has had his own legal troubles in the past. In 2003 he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in the US for what was described as a 9/11 swindle.
In 2011 it was reported that he was getting out of prison after serving less than half his maximum sentence and would be deported here.
The report had said that Cyril Kendall, then 61, defrauded kindhearted charities of US$160,000 by fabricating a fictitious son he said had died in the 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center.
He was sentenced in August 2003 to serve up to 20 years in jail, but the Daily News reported that he had been approved for early release from the Fishkill Correctional Facility.
According to the Daily News, the state Parole Board granted Kendall’s release from the upstate prison just two days after the country had observed the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Asked about this Kendall admitted that he was “one and same person” but said he was never deported to Guyana as he had fought this issue in court and he can travel back and forth between Guyana and the US as he pleases.
