I shudder to think of others, who have had similar experiences

May 28, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I live at Agricola. At about 4 am on Saturday, May 2, 2009 my wife and I were awakened by the barking of dogs in our street. We peeped through our window and saw a large group of men in the street. Shortly afterwards we heard a banging sound on our house. It sounded like someone banging on glass.
I opened my front door and went to my front gate. There I saw a large number of men, some uniformed as police men, others not. Most of them seemed to be armed. I also saw a man dressed as a policeman standing on my five feet high fence.

“Sir, please get off of my fence.” I said to him.
“Open the gate! You didn’t hear your dogs barking?” He shouted.
By this time my son Michael had awakened. He was at the front door. I asked him to get the key to the gate. Meanwhile I kept insisting that the man on my fence descend. I got a chorus from some of the other persons there: “Open the gate.”

Michael soon brought the key and I opened the gate. The man on the fence ordered: “Tie that dog! Or I will shoot him.” He was making reference to my dog which kept barking and jumping at him.
I called to Michael to tie the dog. While he was doing so, about ten persons entered the yard.
I said: “Hold on, hold on. What is this all about?”
“Police!” they said.
“May I speak to the Officer in charge?” I asked.
A uniformed man stepped forward. “I am in charge’, he said.
“What is this all about, sir?” I asked.
“We are looking for arms, ammunition and drugs,” he said.
“Why are you looking in my house for those things? We are hard working, law abiding people.” I protested.
The man who was on the fence said, “Big man, leh we do our work!” and walked past me to enter the house along with several others.

I kept protesting as the police had searched our home twice before and each time they ransacked the house and left us in total confusion trying to put the house back in order.
I followed them upstairs. “Why don’t you guys go and search elsewhere? I asked. “Look at this house do we look like people who would be involved with drugs and guns?”
One of them shouted: “Big man ah warning you for the last time.”
“You guys are totally unprofessional,” I said.
One of them said: “Arrest him and take him to the vehicle.”
Another said: “Shoot him.”
Two men quickly secured my arms and started pushing me to the door.
By this time Michael had come upstairs. “Why are you doing this to him?” He asked.
The man who had been on the fence turned and slapped him across the face.
“What you slap me for?” Michael asked.
The man slapped him again. “Shut up!”
Some one shouted: “Shoot him!”

They were still pushing me through the doorway when I heard a commotion on the stairway. I saw three persons wrestling with my eldest son who lives downstairs. He was screaming: “Leave my parents alone!”
One was securing his neck. Two others were pulling his arms.
They dragged him down the steps and placed him along with me into the back of a vehicle. I was dressed only in trunks and was bare footed. I asked if I could be allowed to be properly dressed. One objected and when I protested one of them said that I should be given a shirt. My daughter-in-law then brought me a shirt, pants and a pair of sneakers.

About ten minutes later my son Michael was escorted to the vehicle and placed beside us.
My wife was bare footed and hysterical, amidst threats from the police men. She was asking why her family was being arrested. My daughter-in-law was also visibly traumatized. They along with a neighbor pleaded to let us go as we had done nothing wrong.
We waited in the vehicle for about one hour while they filled it with three other men. When a police sat at the back of the vehicle he commented that it was packed. One of his colleagues joked that it still had a lot of space.
They then drove us to the Brickdam Police Station where we were asked to sit on a bench. We were then asked to give personal data (name, other name, date of birth, profession, address). They took away personal possessions and then escorted us to the lockup where we were made to strip our clothes, exposing our private parts, and placed into the lockup.

I was shocked at the stench that greeted me. The place was overcrowded with persons sleeping on the concrete floor. It is one of the most insanitary places I have ever seen. I stood near the door and kept glancing at my two young sons. I could find no words to console them.
We stood in there for eight hours from 6am to 2pm, when we were released and asked to return to the Brickdam Police Station at 8.30am on Monday, May 4, 2009. Being in the Brickdam Police lockups is not an experience I would wish for an enemy.
Later my wife informed me that the first sound we had heard that sounded like someone banging on glass had been made of a policeman who had scaled our fence and was hiding on the verandah (ten feet off the ground) with a gun. She explained that she discovered this when he later rapped on the glass door for her to open it for him to leave the house.

My son Michael informed me that they had flushed the toilet and had looked in the toilet tank. He added that some of the police men said that he looked as if he smoked weed. They questioned him about his lab tap computer, demanded to see a receipt for it and threatened to seize it.
When we returned home I noticed that his room was totally ransacked.
My wife further informed me that our lawyer who had attempted to seek our release was told that all three of us were facing serious charges, namely: disorderly behavior, obstruction a police officer and assaulting a police officer. That is not only ludicrous. It is just malicious and wicked.
It is the most unjust and inhuman thing that has ever happened to me. I am still searching my mind to find a single justification for the police behavior.

Words cannot express how disappointed I am in the Guyana Police Force. I believe that the police are there to serve and protect the rights of and to provide security to citizens. As law abiding citizens we are always willing to work with the police to help create a better and socially acceptable environment for the common co-existence of everyone. However, when officers of the law break the law, under the protection of the law, in an effort to enforce the law, then their objectives cannot be achieved as the negative spinoffs are far more powerful than the perceived benefits.

I ask myself how different is it when a family is brutalized by bandits, from when it is brutalized by officers of the law, under the protection of the law? What are the psychological implications?
I tell myself that certain words such as strategy, tactics, empathy, responsibility, courtesy, ethics, professionalism, self esteem and pride are all alien to the Guyana Police Force; that they must be familiar with words such as brutality, force, crassness, violence, and distrust. I recommend that in carrying out their duties the police should follow procedural rules, employ intelligence and be professional.
I shudder to think of the number of other Guyanese families that may have had similar experiences at the hands of the Guyana Police force, but are powerless to do something about it. I would not think that my family is in that category.

I also believe that law abiding citizens should not be harassed by the police unless there are clear grounds for suspicion of wrongdoing and involvement in illegality.
The whole experience is nothing short of horrific. Thanks to ACDA and Eric Phillips for intervening with the Police Station where senior members of the Police, including Superintendant Daniels and Inspector Parris were very professional and understanding.

I have spent all of my adult life helping others. I have taught my children to be involved in helping to mold, and to mentor others. My family is law abiding, hard working, studious and helpful to others. If that is not good enough to save us from constant police harassment then we will have to seek asylum in another country. We feel totally at risk of further police brutality.
Owen John

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