Anti-corruption advocate alleges police harassment

Mar 02, 2015 News

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Anti-corruption advocate and one of the faces behind social media movement, Real Guyana, has expressed disgust at what he described as undue and malicious harassment by the police over a video he made public on his social media accounts.
Francis Bailey, 29, is claiming that the police teamed up with a city businessman to victimize him over the video which showed two young men rolling a ‘spliff’ on the bonnet of a police vehicle.

According to the 29-year-old, he was out on a fishing trip with some friends at the back of North Ruimveldt, Georgetown around 13:30 hours on February 22, last when he happened upon a strange scene at a neighbourhood mechanic shop.
Bailey told this publication that he spotted two youngsters rolling a ‘spliff’ (a cannabis cigarette) while leaning on the bonnet of a police van which was parked in front of the workshop. The van was parked a few feet away from a prison truck.
Bailey recorded the incident and on Tuesday last, he posted the video on YouTube. The video’s note spoke extensively of the activity observed at the shop and the fact that the owner purportedly works on police vehicles regularly.
“These youths work for a mechanic in North Georgetown…. Not only can you find children working in the workshop but they can get weed from him as well. Now guess what…he has a contract with the Guyana Police Force to fix their vehicles. Police roll in an out of this yard all week long and know very well what’s going on. I would say more but Real would get shot for it,” Real Guyana noted.
The video coupled with the note did not sit well with the shop owner or some members of the Guyana Police Force. The 29-year-old told this publication that it was around 11:00 hours the next day, the shop owner pulled up at his South Ruimveldt residence.
“All I heard was my gate being beat down and a distinct voice was shouting, ‘I gun beat him. He gun see what gun happen to him. If you die just like that, that’s me!’” he recalled hearing.
According to the 29-year-old when he looked out his window, he saw a gang of six men forcing their way into his yard. A grey pick-up truck was parked on the road.
The activist said that he asked the men if they were threatening him, as he got his camera and began recording the incident.
The businessman reportedly told Bailey that he will file a police report “because he videoed his entity and the police were questioning him.”
“He said I needed to take off the video (from the internet) or he will deal with me.”
But Bailey reportedly defended that the video did not focus on his business. As his neighbours watched, the businessman got into the vehicle and left.
Fearful for his life, the 29-year-old hopped on his bicycle, rode down to the North Ruimveldt Police Outpost where he attempted to lodge a report of the incident.
He told Kaieteur News that the Station Sergeant refused to take his statement and the businessman later walked into the station with a squad of army and police ranks. “They all had guns and they came into the station with him. He pointed at me and said ‘He is the man.’”
The 29-year-old told this publication that a police rank turned to him and said “So you’re the man that made the video.” He said one rank pushed for him to be arrested and shortly after he was instructed by a Police Corporal to sit on the bench next to other detainees.
The Corporal reportedly said he should not have made the video.
Bailey said the police instead took a report from the businessman.
He said that he attempted to video the incident but his camera was seized at the businessman’s behest; who claimed that he is “dangerous” with it.
Bailey said the police then placed him to sit in the tray of a van. With the businessman in tow, they ventured to his house where they ransacked his premises. After they found nothing, the 29-year-old said they turned and said they would charge him since “One way or the other we are going to get you!”
He reportedly told them “I’m not getting arrested for this. I’d rather die. I’m not going to jail, I haven’t done anything wrong. I ain’t Mark Benschop. I ain’t about to sit in jail for five years for nothing!”
Bailey said out of frustration, he took a bottle of poison saying he would rather drink it and it was then that the police threatened to arrest him, claiming that he would be charged for attempting suicide.
While at his home, they grilled him about the video. They told him to take his laptop and they headed back to the station. His attempt to call an Attorney was shot down.
At the station, they reportedly told him, “If you ain’t want to get in prison for this you have to delete that video.” They rounded up in the vehicle and went to a place he identified as an off-duty policewoman’s home on National Avenue, South Ruimveldt to access the internet.
It was there that he was forced to access his account and delete the video. He said all the while the female police rank said that, “I am evil and they should beat me. I should’ve drank the poison and die.”
They then forced him to make a video apologizing and they later uploaded it. He said when he returned to the station to uplift his items, he found that a large amount of his videos were deleted.
Bailey claimed that at no point was the businessman investigated.
He said “The folks behind Real Guyana will continue doing its work without fear or favour…Not only did the mechanic turn up at the cameraman’s house to threaten him but the police helped, then ransacked the house looking for guns, ammunition and drugs…not the mechanic’s property, the cameraman’s property.”
“We fear the death of this country and what will happen to it if such levels of corruption and nepotism go unchecked. We fear that far more than personal injury. All CCTV and camera footage of the event have been retrieved, compiled and uploaded,” he said.
The Real Guyana YouTube and Facebook pages have dozens of videos through which it exposes the state of affairs as a part of a corruption watch.
The video at the center of this controversy can be found on this YouTube address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jg-AJsaED4. In this video the young men can be seen rolling the ‘spliff,’ wiping the vehicle and heading back into the shop.

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