Family of drowned boy takes aim at police

Mar 14, 2013 News

The family of the 14-year-old boy who drowned on Sunday in the Berbice River has criticized the police response. They stated that the two-hour wait for the police might have cost the boy his life.
Also, questions about lack of supervision of children by parents and relatives have come under scrutiny. It was just over two weeks ago when eight-year-old Emmanuel Welch drowned in an open underground reservoir at Sheet Anchor, East Canje. He, too, was playing with friends when the incident occurred.
Abdul ‘Sonny’ Assif, a student of the Canje Secondary School, suddenly went missing in the waters of the Berbice River, while swimming after a drifting five-gallon bottle that he and five other friends were using to keep afloat. The incident occurred shortly after 16:00 hrs on Sunday at the corner of the New Amsterdam Ferry Stelling.
The teen was not a trained swimmer. The body was finally discovered at 21:00 hrs Sunday after a frantic search by family and friends.
His friend, 20-year-old Orlando Adams, stated that “we were swimming and he had a jar—all of us brought the jar—and the boys left the jar floating and it float away.”
He added that “he will get licks for the jar and the boys wanted [him] to plunge after the jar and he go between the boat and he started to look for it”.
Assif did make a plunge from a moored vessel, belonging to Oldendorff Shipping, with hopes to find the missing jar but he never came back to the surface. “We didn’t see he raise up back and we start [to] holler out for he. We ain’t seeing he anywhere, and suddenly he raise up back and started to fight—fight—and we take off to go in for he but he went under again”.
The boy disappeared under the boat “and he stick between the tug”, and that was the last of Assif.
One of the boys’ uncles made calls to the police at Central Police Station and it took over two hours for the police to arrive.
The Central Police Station is located a short distance from the New Amsterdam Ferry Stelling. “They [the police] said they didn’t get no boats to go in the river and do the search—so the family did the search—the police ain’t do nothing”.
The relative stated that the police started to ask irrelevant questions after the body was discovered under the N/A Ferry Stelling.
Efforts to contact the Commander of ‘B’ Division, Mr. Brian Joseph, proved futile.
Assif leaves to mourn his sister, Nazeema. The body is at the New Amsterdam Hospital Mortuary awaiting an autopsy.

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Family of drowned boy takes aim at police

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