Bogus detective tries to seize QC students’ smart phones

Jan 22, 2015 News

Police have detained a man who pretended to be a detective and tried to seize smart phones from several students of Queen’s College yesterday

The phony Detective was taken into police custody

morning.
The imposter might have succeeded had it not been for some suspicious first formers who were his prime targets.
Some of the students had already begun to hand over their phones but a few smart ones contacted teachers and some parents and this led to the man’s apprehension.
Kaieteur News understands that the well-dressed man entered the school almost unnoticed shortly before classes commenced and proceeded undetected to the first form classrooms.
He told the students that he was a detective who was sent by the Ministry of Education to seize all cellular phones from students.
“He told the students that the Ministry said they must not have phones in school,” a police official who is part of the investigation told Kaieteur News.
According to a source at the school, the impostor ordered the students to lay their phones on a desk, separating the high end phones from the cheap gadgets.
“He went from One A, to One B, to One C and One D, telling the students from each class to lay out their phones by the time he came back. He was so bold, as if he was sure that he would not be caught,” the source told this newspaper.
By now some of the students had become suspicious and refused to comply with the con man’s request.
He then tried another strategy to get them to comply.
The man ordered those who refused to write their names on a piece of paper, which he threatened to take to the Headmistress, for disciplinary action to be taken.
But his scheme unraveled when some teachers who were alerted confronted him and prevented him from leaving the school while they summoned the police, who subsequently came and took him into custody.
“What is surprising is that the man appeared to be well connected. He told one of the teachers that he would be sorry for confronting him since he (impostor) knows ‘people’ and nothing will happen to him,” a fifth form student of the institution stated.
Police confirmed that the man is being interrogated and they are compiling statements from the school teachers and students, so that charges can be instituted.
A Queen’s College source disclosed that a teacher did see the impostor before he started to carry out his scheme but mistook him for a parent.
But even if he was a parent, the arrangement is that he should have been accompanied to the classrooms by a teacher.
The incident has certainly raised concerns about the security at the school and comes in the wake of anxiety expressed by the Guyana Teachers’ Union on security at the country’s schools.
“It will certainly have an impact on the security situation at Queen’s College. There are other buildings in that compound that are not connected to the school and many people go in there for different reasons. They (school administrators) cannot always know who is going where,” the source said.
President of the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), Mark Lyte, in a recent interview with this newspaper had highlighted, that security at schools across the country is not an issue that can be taken lightly.
The need for security, he said, is especially important in light of the fact that there has been an upsurge in violence in the school system. And violent situations, according to him, have not only been among students, and students and teachers but rather there are occasions that parents feel the need to be violent as well.
“There are times when parents and guardians would try to barge in the schools to attack teachers if they feel that a teacher has not treated a child or children in a proper way,” said Lyte.
There are some cases that even warrant the attention of the police.
There have been requests by some schools for the Police to patrol the area of the school to dissuade some violent activities.
The security concern, Lyte related, is one that has been raised at the level of the Ministry of Education, even with the Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand.
Meanwhile, at Queen’s College, the security situation has gotten out of hand.
Kaieteur News was reliably informed that the firm COPS (Guyana) Limited, which is contracted to provide security at the institution has not been paid since October last year. They have since reduced the quota of security personnel at QC by half.
“There used to be four guards, now there are only two. The Ministry is aware of this and had promised a subvention to take care of the situation but this has not yet been received,” a member of the school’s Parent/Teachers’ Association informed this newspaper.