Woman: Police slapped me and knocked out my tooth

A Penniston woman is fuming-she claims that a police officer slapped her, knocking her dental cap out of her mouth, during an incident last month at her home.{{more}}

Donnette George said that a man came to her home on December 19, at around 7 am, to do some painting for her.

“I told him to go outside to open the paint so that it wouldn’t mess up, and I heard two gunshots,” George said.

She told SEARCHLIGHT that she then saw a “rasta man” run by, and then she heard a third shot.

According to George, when she started to scream, she was told by a group of four persons who were pursuing the man to be quiet, because they were police officers.

A short while later, the police officers came back, George claimed, and searched an old house close to where she lived. But it was what transpired after this that George says has her really upset.

She said that police officers came to her house, and when she asked what happened she was pushed aside.

“I was in my towel, and I was in my underwear alone, and I was having my period,” George said, adding that she was upset with the way the officer dealt with her.

She told SEARCHLIGHT that she pushed back the police officer and he slapped her in her face, knocking her dental cap out.

“My mother came outside the same time and asked what was taking place, and a police man push her, she fell and broke her finger nail,’ George said.

She said that Rachael Johnson, a 16 year old form four student, who lives with her, was also roughed up.

“When she saw what they (the police) did to us, she stand up in front of the door way, and the police just push her around, and then wrap a cord from an iron around her neck,” George claims.

George said that eventually the police found the guy they were looking for in a cupboard in one of the bedrooms. According to George, the man may have jumped through a window at the back of the house.

“But if they get word that he jump through there, when they come by me they just have to say, we believe the man hiding in there, and then all this wouldn’t have happened, but you can’t treat people so,” said George.

She said that she was shocked and hurt about the way as women, she, her 84-year-old mother and the teenaged girl were treated by the lawmen.

George said that later the same day, she went to see the Prime Minister about the incident, but was sent to the Commissioner of Police’s office, where she made a report.

Inspector Jonathan Nichols of the Police Public Relation’s Department told SEARCHLIGHT that the report by George was in fact made and is currently being investigated.

Nichols said that he wanted to assure George and all persons in society that once reports are made about police officers, they are not ignored, but rather thoroughly investigated.(KJ)