POLICE ranks from the Vigilance Police Station are coming in for some very harsh criticism from members of the Lusignan Community after they responded to a report of assault and abuse, but failed to take the badly beaten man who was bleeding from a wound to the forehead and his nose, to either the police station or the hospital.

This publication, which was on the scene, observed that some patrons from a bar in the area emerged from the drinking spot under the influence and began beating the man and kicking him to the face while he lay helplessly on the roadway.
The patrons then entered two separate vehicles and left the scene but were later identified by one man who witnessed the incident.
The victim, ‘Thomo’, told this newspaper that he was passing the shop and a guy who is a popular DJ invited him to open one of the two cars and take a beer which he attempted to do. With tears in his eyes, the man said that as he attempted to take the beer, several persons approached him and began beating him, causing him to fall to the ground even as the blows continued and the DJ looked on.

Contact was made with a senior police officer in the division who immediately informed ranks of the development and a patrol was sent to the area. However, when the patrol arrived at the scene, and after being briefed by no more than ten persons of what had transpired, and by the victim himself, the police placed him in the service vehicle and drove off.
However the ire of the residents came as they later saw the badly beaten and still bleeding man stumbling as he made his way through a street to his home where he lived alone.
When the man was questioned by persons in the area, including this reporter, as to why he was back home, he related that the police took him a street away from where the incident occurred and he was thrown off there by the police who told him to make his way to his relatives who should take him to the hospital.
This publication was also able to confirm that the police did eventually take the man to the hospital after their unprofessional and inhumane initial actions.
Incidentally also, police ranks from the Vigilance Police Station are often seen at the shop in question and just moments before the incident two ranks from the said station pulled up in a service vehicle and spent almost 45 minutes inside the shop before leaving, even as one of them appeared to have a bottle wrapped in a tissue re-entering the vehicle.
Meanwhile the recent actions of the ranks on the police patrol GGG 9471 are being regarded by persons in the area as a slap in the face of Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud and his senior ranks who have been working very hard to bring the Guyana Police Force back to the former glory it enjoyed decades ago.

(By Leroy Smith)