OPR investigating alleged assault of woman by Police Commander

Nov 29, 2015 News

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A family in the mining town of Linden is accusing police ranks there of physically assaulting them and then covering up their actions by instituting charges against some family members.
The McAlmont family is accusing police ranks, including the Commander of the ‘E’ Division, Senior Superintendent Calvin Brutus, of using unnecessary physical violence two weeks ago to carry out a simple arrest.
Maxford Mc Almont is alleging that the Commander physically assaulted his wife, Deborah, who is a serving member of the Guyana Police Force at their One Mile, Wismar home on Tuesday, November 17.
But although the matter is being investigated by the police Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) McAlmont is not too confident that justice will be served, given who is involved.
On the day in question, Mc Almont was not at home but his son, Dexter, was operating in his vulcanizing shop which is located at One Mile, Wismar when three men barged in and began assaulting him.
A few persons in the shop, convinced that it was a bandit attack, quickly exited. One of them informed the man’s mother who lived a short distance away.
McAlmont said that when his wife arrived at the shop, she saw the men assaulting her son and like any other mother, she intervened.
She managed to free her son by pushing away one of the men. Another man went to a tinted car that was parked nearby and grabbed a baton and returned to the shop to attack McAlmont’s son, who managed to arm himself with a cutlass and chased one of the men away.
McAlmont said that after the men left, his wife took his son home. It turned out that the men were actually policemen in plainclothes.
At the time no one was made aware that McAlmont’s son was wanted by the police. A few minutes later, though, two jeeps load of police ranks, including the Commander swooped down and surrounded McAlmont’s house.
Mc Almont was now aware that the men who had attacked his son and wife earlier were policemen since they had returned with the party of heavily armed ranks.
A female rank immediately confronted his wife, who has been attached to the Special Constabulary for the past 25 years, and told her that she was wanted at the station. No mention was made of her son, who had disappeared by then. There were comments from heavily armed ranks that they will kill him.
Mc Almont said that at first his wife showed some reluctance to go to the station, claiming that she needed a change of clothes.
As she was walking away towards the clothes, she felt a cuff to the back of her neck and when she looked around, she saw the senior officer standing there.
The woman said that at the time she was thinking of retaliating but good sense prevailed.
By this time, Mc Almont and another son arrived home, saw what was taking place and enquired from the police why they were treating his wife like that.
“(My wife) told me to keep out, she can handle it,” Mc Almont told this newspaper.
He said his son also questioned the police’s actions and was dealt a cuff to his face and he too was subsequently bundled into a police vehicle.
By now, Mc Almont’s juvenile son came up and was grabbed by a police rank and arrested too.
He said that his wife and two sons were taken into custody and placed at three different stations in Linden.
His wife, although a serving police rank, was placed into the lock-ups at Wismar.
After several hours, Mc Almont’s wife was released without bail and without being told of any charges against her. This was after her husband had turned up with their remaining son with whom the police had the initial altercation.
Three days later on, Friday November 20, all three of Mc Almont’s sons were placed before a court in Georgetown although the police had promised to release two of them.
Their charges were ‘Assaulting Peace Officer’ and ‘Resisting Arrest’ for which they were placed on $150,000 bail each.
“The Commander showed no example by leadership. If he could assault a woman in front of his ranks during what should have been a routine arrest, what do you think they will do?” Mc Almont said.
The family expressed no confidence in the police investigating their own, especially a senior officer.
This newspaper made repeated efforts to contact Commander Brutus throughout the week but was unsuccessful as calls to even his cellular phone went unanswered.
“When he (Mc Almont) went to see (Commander) Hicken after turning in his son, Hicken told him that he was he was making a very serious allegation about a senior officer and like Hicken was getting vex so Mc Almont just walk out,” a relative told this newspaper.

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