Businessman mistakenly detained for being ‘trunker’

Mar 28, 2017 News

…while waiting outside bank for wife

A couple who owns a small Charlestown business said they were humiliated and traumatised yesterday, when police ranks mistook the husband for a ‘trunker’ and detained him outside a commercial bank while his wife was inside making a $1M withdrawal.
The husband was fingerprinted, photographed and questioned for about three hours at the Brickdam Police Station before being eventually released.
The husband said that he had accompanied his wife to the Carmichael Street commercial bank around 11.00 hrs to withdraw $1M. He said that while she went inside, he attempted to find suitable parking for his car. He said that shortly after, a traffic rank approached and asked to see his documents.
An armed policeman on a motorcycle then rode up and told the traffic rank, “we want that man.” The armed rank and another colleague began to search his car, and although finding nothing incriminating, informed him that they were taking him to the Brickdam Police Station.
“Although I telling them my wife in the bank with a million dollars, they still carry me to Brickdam.”
The man’s wife told Kaieteur News she was still waiting to complete the transaction when she received a call from her husband who said that police ranks had arrested him. She said that by the time she emerged from the bank with the $1M, the ranks had already moved off with her husband.
The businesswoman said she informed a policeman who was outside the bank about her husband’s arrest and he arranged for her to be taken to the Brickdam Police Station.
On arriving at the station, she learnt that police were treating her husband as a “suspected trunker,” and on suspicion of “waiting to commit a crime.”
According to the woman, despite explaining that she had $1M which she had just uplifted for business purposes, she was told to ‘hold on’ downstairs. However, the woman said she went to a senior rank and explained her situation.
She said that the senior rank informed her that he would tell the ranks to release her spouse. “A police sergeant told me ‘Don’t worry, you will get through just now,’ and they took my husband into a room.”
The husband was questioned further, fingerprinted and photographed. They also took his cell phone, while checking his prints against those in the police database.
“They check his fingerprints and picture, they found nothing; they checked his car, and found nothing. I say I have to go to (another) bank, and all the time I have the $1M, and standing up in the (station) yard.”
“They had the man (husband) in room, and a policemen come up and say, is where the tunker? Another one say look, is that big man.”
While the husband was eventually released, the couple said that they are still to get over their embarrassment.
“They also endangered my wife. She was on the road with $1M; anybody could have robbed her because of their stupidity,” The husband said.
“You telling them (the truth) and they not listening.”
He was also upset that the police ranks claimed that staff at the bank had contacted them, and this had led to his arrest.
The unfortunate arrest is likely have been triggered by the recent spate of attacks on individuals leaving commercial banks. Crime Chief Blanhum recently said other gangs have sprung up in the place of those that police had dismantled.

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