Two days before a meeting was to be held at the Petit Bordel Secondary School (PBSS) to discuss police/community relations, Chateaubelair resident Eric Isaacs told SEARCHLIGHT that he was slapped by police not too far from where he lives.{{more}}
On Tuesday, December 2nd, Isaacs said that he was walking along the road when a police vehicle pulled up next to him and the officers told him to take off a green t-shirt he was wearing. He said that he asked them âFor what?â
Isaccs said he then told the police officers that he was not going to take off the t-shirt. Isaacs said that the officers then got out of the vehicle and began to search him. He said they took away his phone, a cigarette lighter and a pair of scissors he was carrying.
âWhen I was trying to get back my phone, one of the police come from behind and gee me a hard slap in my face, an tell me nobody up yah ah bad man, dem dey ah de bad man,â Isaacs said.
A Sharpes Village resident, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that she was sitting on her verandah when she saw the officer slap Isaacs. âHe didnât do them anything. I heard the slap from where I was sitting and my neighbour who live further away told me she heard the slap, too. This police brutality must stop. They must remember everybody is somebody, too,â she lamented.
Isaacs said that the police gave him back his phone, but they took his scissors and t-shirt and broke up his lighter. Isaacs also said that he would attend the meeting that was to be held at the PBSS yesterday. The meeting was a follow up to one that was held early last month at the Golden Grove Learning Resource Centre after North Leeward residents complained of widespread police brutality throughout the area, mainly at the hands of the Rapid Response Unit (RRU) based at the Chateaubelair Police Station.
On Independence morning, October 27th, Troumaca residents blocked the road in protest after four men were taken up and allegedly beaten the night before.
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