A police report said that they have launched a full investigation into a case where a detainee, Frederick Martinez, 18, died while he was in police care at the Dangriga Police Station.
Martinez, a resident of Dangriga Town was left in custody by a constable, who said that he had initially taken Martinez to the Southern Regional Hospital after the mentally unstable man hit another man. There was no psychiatrist to attend to him there, so the officer took him to the station on Sunday and decided to keep him in lock-down.
The police said that there was a second attempt to take Martinez to see a psychiatrist on Tuesday, but that there was still none available to attend to him, and Martinez was therefore kept there for another day.
When he made a check on him the following morning, he was dead in the cell, the officer said.
The constable said that it was sometime around 5:30 – 6:00 on Wednesday morning that he found Martinez dead in the holding cell. He had seen him alive about an hour prior to that, he said.
According to a police report, the constable has been arrested, but his name has not been released to the media.
Police said that the constable reported that he had detained Martinez on Sunday, June 3, after he had allegedly punched a taxi driver in his face for no apparent reason. Martinez was behaving out of control, and the officer thought that he was a threat to the community.
Police said that when Martinez was discovered dead, to verify what they had said, that Martinez was not abused, they invited his family members to observe his body for any marks, if they had any thoughts that he had been abused.