More than six weeks after a fracas at the Providence Police Station during which a gunshot was fired and cops scattered for cover, the authorities are yet to pronounce on the matter and the aggrieved family which has claimed assault by the guards of a prominent businessman is calling for justice.
In a video which was posted on Facebook, Anand Goodluck described the events between himself and the businessman’s son prior to the scuffle with the businessman’s security guards at the Providence station.
Goodluck, in the video which was posted on Friday said that he was ordered by his boss to go to the Eccles Industrial Site on December 10 to pick up a machine with the boss’s truck.
“On the tenth of December I was sent… to pick up a machine at Eccles Industrial Site… I got there about six something the morning, the rain was falling and I was in my truck sitting.”
He said on arrival there, he parked the truck along the road and waited for an operator to give him further instructions on when to put the machine into the truck.
While waiting, he was approached by an employee of the businessman’s construction company who told him that he could not park the truck nor uplift any machine along the road. Goodluck said that he informed the employee of what his boss had told him.
Radio
The employee then used his radio to tell the son of the businessman of Goodluck’s answer. A few minutes later, the driver said he saw a vehicle drive up next to his truck and a male exited and started to question him on his parking. “I said to him I waiting to collect a machine… look the machine is over the road, and he said to me ‘Yuh can’t uplift no machine on this road [while using expletives] that we building… I said to him ‘pardna when the operator come he will instruct me where to put the truck so that the machine could go on.’”
Goodluck said that due to expletives, racial remarks and a death threat he received, he took out his cell phone and video recorded the actions and statements of the businessman’s son.
“…At the point in time I see what was about to happen and the phone ketch everything that this man was telling me, he walk off, before he walk off he tell the same man that come to me and ask me why I park my truck deh… he seh ‘tek away he phone’ that was my phone,” but the employee was unsuccessful at doing so.
The driver of the truck said that the businessman’s son then walked away but came back later and informed him that his [Goodluck’s] boss had instructed that he park the truck across the road with which Goodluck said he complied.
“About ten to fifteen minutes after this ordeal would’ve went down… about fifteen minutes after this the said man [the businessman’s son] come back with two security on a motorbike… one of the security who was at the back of the one that was riding the motorbike burst open my truck door, dealt me one lash to the left side of my ears… with a gun,” and then told Goodluck to hand over his phone.
“At the point of time I hold on on my phone, the man keep saying give me your phone [while using expletives], you videoing my boss… he tek the gun and point it straight to meh face. I decide that I gon loose the phone, I loose the phone, the man jump down from the truck, jump on the motorbike with the next man…they rode off with the motorbike.”
Goodluck said that he tried to follow them but was unsuccessful. He then decided to venture to the Providence Police Station to make a report and according to him, the ranks took the information that he provided but as he was doing so, he told a rank to take him to the hospital since he was suffering from severe pain due to the injury he sustained from the security guard’s gun.
The next day on December 11, the driver said that he, a brother and his mother went back to the station to check on the status of his report but were told to wait.
As he was waiting, Goodluck said, “where I was standing I would’ve looked over in the Shell Gas Station from Providence station…when I looked over the road I saw the said vehicle that came…and the same said two security guard over the road.” When he informed the police of the men’s presence, the rank told him that he was in the process of calling the patrol van to go over to the gas station to apprehend the men.
Due to the police’s slow action in apprehending the men, Goodluck said his “… brother decided that he gon take out his phone to video the man them over the road and go over the road and start videoing the men them…” He noted that when the father of the man who had approached him the previous day and his two security guards saw what his brother was doing so, the man ordered the guards to take away the phone.
Run in the Providence station
“They begin to run me brother over the road and me brother run in the Providence station… just to get the cell phone from me brother because he video them…one of the security guard… he go and deal me mother a slap in she face… and the two police officers deh right deh,” Goodluck lamented.
He recalled that during the ordeal, he was looking at one of the security guards who had a gun. “And as I coulda look at the next security I see he gat a big gun in he waist tuck in he pants… when the security guard realize that I know he gat a firearm in he waist… he decide that he gon reach for the gun [and] when he reach for the gun, I reach for the gun same time with he cause I know that he gon take out the gun to start shooting… with me and him now one scuffle, I snatch unto the gun, he snatch unto the gun and the gun deh in we hand and the gun fire off and he loose the gun… when the gun fire off everybody drop pon the ground, the two police run out the station, I leave with the gun in me hand,” explained the distressed man in the video.
After relating the entire ordeal, Goodluck started to question the length of the investigation and demanded that justice must be served for him and his family. “From the eleventh of December to today Friday, the twenty seventh of January and they still reading the matter, not only that they reading the matter, they would’ve transferred every single body from Providence station that would’ve known of this matter… I know that justice must be served,” contended Goodluck.
The man said that he was told by a member of the force that the matter is a criminal matter which was being sorted out and was in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions. He also noted that he was told by the Commander of Regional Division 4 ‘B’, Senior Superintendent Mahendra Singh that he was in possession of the various reports and statements and that it was being looked into.
Stabroek News had reported on the fracas back in December after the circulation of a video of part of the incident in the station and had tried to get a comment on the investigation from Singh but was told that he would not be commenting at that point due to its sensitivity. Frequent checks since by this newspaper with Singh have yielded no result
