Dear Editor

SOMETIMES when I overhear persons bad-mouthing policemen, in particular traffic ranks, about the manner in which they execute their jobs, most times I tend not to agree with the statements they make.
However, an incident which occurred around 14:00hrs yesterday (Monday), outside the Ruimveldt Police Station has me now feeling that sometimes the utterances against these policemen may be true.
Five female passengers and I were in a Route 42 minibus bearing number plate BRR 5933, with the driver and the conductor being males.
As the bus approached the Ruimveldt Police Station, I observed two male traffic ranks–one wearing a helmet standing on the roadway–and as the bus was about to pass him, he signaled to the driver that he should pull in the corner.
The driver and the conductor were not aware that they had done any wrong, so they waited in the bus for the rank to approach them.

The helmeted rank, a constable (whose name can be provided) then walked up to the left front door and ordered the driver to “turn the bus around and take it in the station yard.” When the driver asked: “Is wha we do boss?” the policeman repeated his orders.
I overheard one of the women asking: “Is wha is this now, I done late already?” I too was also on my way to work. I suggested to the officer that he was being unreasonable, but he gave me a withering look and said: “I will lock you up for obstruction.”
As the driver was about to turn the bus around, the taller of the two policemen came alongside the driver’s side and said: “We have reasons to believe the bus has drugs.”
When the bus reached the station compound, the rank with the helmet called upstairs, saying he needed a female rank. He then turned to us in the bus and said no one must disembark until he says so.

A female in plainclothes came downstairs and ordered that we be escorted upstairs to be body-searched. Once upstairs, we were all made to sit on the prisoner’s bench as we awaited our turn to go upstairs into a room where we were made to empty out belongings, and in my case unbutton my pants and lift up my blouse.
When I returned downstairs, I was made to give my name, address and contact number and when I asked the reason, I was told the others had to do likewise. I am aware that the police have their jobs to do, but the difficulty I have is that the policeman, when he approached the bus, never told the driver nor the conductor of an infraction, but instead in a pompous manner ordered that the bus be taken to the station compound.
There was never any utterance of the suspicion of drugs being in the bus until the taller of the two policemen came alongside the bus. A search of the passengers, the driver, the conductor and the bus unearthed no such drugs.
However,it was obvious from the mannerism of the policeman who ordered the bus in the station yard that he was on a roll, to show me who was more powerful because he asked: “You got me name?” Another who was dressed in civilian wear joked that “the bus should not leave the compound until he (as a detective) conducted a thorough search.
God help us all in this country if this is what the ordinary man has to face on a daily basis and they are afraid to speak up for their rights.

Wendella Davidson