Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Mother of dead prisoner steps up pleas for investigation
The mother of Steve Weever, the prisoner who was kept some 19 days in the Brickdam Police Station with a gunshot wound, has joined other relatives in pleading for further investigations into his death.
Mrs. Ilene Weever is adamant that the authorities should have ensured that he received proper medical care during his incarceration.
“They say my son was a drug addict, that he was a thief… (but) he should have been given proper medical attention.”
Mrs. Weever, who returned from the US last Saturday to bury her son, noted that even a prisoner has rights and the law enforcers should respect them.
Steve Weever, 50, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital after staff at the Georgetown Prisons saw him lying motionless in the infirmary and took him to the medical facility.
A post mortem revealed that he died of cirrhosis, rather than from the gunshot injury he sustained in the thigh. A medical source said, given the condition of Weever’s liver, he “was living on borrowed time.”
On December 28 last, Weever and another man were shot by a businessman on Waterloo Street, who claimed that the men attacked him with a cutlass and a spade, after attempting to steal items from his premises.
Dead: Steve Weever
The dead man’s relatives said the investigating ranks failed to show them the ‘weapons’ which the two men reportedly had in their possession.
His sisters insist that their brother was no criminal, and prison officials said that he was never incarcerated. Police sources described him as a “deportee” but said that they were unaware of any previous brushes he had with the law. In an interview at the GPHC, Weever had claimed that he was peeping at another man who had entered the businessman’s yard when the businessman shot him.
Mrs. Weever said the family was informed that on the day her son was shot, it was the businessman who informed ranks at the Brickdam Police Station about the shooting. This publication was told that when the ranks arrived on the scene, the two men, who both had gunshot wounds, were placed face down on the road.
Eventually, both men were taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital. On March 17, the woman said, her son was discharged from the hospital after undergoing surgery.
Immediately after his discharge, Weever was thrown into the lock-ups at the Brickdam Police Station where he spent 19 days without medical attention, lying on a concrete floor, with boxes of feces and bottles of urine scattered across the floor.
Mrs. Weever said her daughters pleaded with police ranks at the lock-ups to allow the injured Weever to go to the Hospital. It is unclear if the police sought permission from the High Court to hold the suspect for 19 days without charging him.
On more than one occasion however, one of the dead man’s sisters was allowed to tend to his gunshot wound. The sister said when she pleaded with ranks to ensure that her brother receive further medical attention, she was told ‘the police ain’t got time.’
This was despite relatives offering to provide their own transportation to take the injured Weever to the hospital.
While not being a medical expert, Mrs. Weever said it was related to her that her son’s foot had become infected with “worms.” However, other sources told Kaieteur News that the wound was not gangrenous.
Police sources claim that Weever was held in the lock-ups for such a long period without charges because the police were unable to locate a medical report from the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The suspect and his alleged accomplice were subsequently charged with simple larceny. The other man was jailed after pleading guilty.
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