Allegations of police brutality have not ended after last Friday evening’s Gang Suppression Unit raid on George Street, when, residents told the media, the police beat them bloody — old and young, male and female, for no good reason.
Today, Amandala has received another report of brutality by an officer who did it “just because he had the power to do so.”
The victim, Glenn Blease, feels that the police’s Internal Affairs Division is doing nothing to properly investigate his formal complaint.
Blease, who assists in the running of a halfway house in Belmopan, told us that on August 17, 2011, at around 2 a.m. on the San Martin Road in Belmopan, he was stopped by Belmopan police on vehicle patrol; he was travelling on foot with a suitcase.
He was questioned by the officers, and while they investigated the contents of the suitcase, another officer rode up to Blease and took over the proceedings from police on patrol.
Blease told us that this officer, who was dressed in a black uniform, became violent with him. He said that the officer took out a baton and looked him over as if deciding the best place to hit him.
The officer then told him to kneel down, put his hands behind his head and close his eyes — demands with which he complied, Blease said.
Blease said that he then looked at the other officer and asked if they would allow this officer to brutalize him.
They did not answer him, Blease said, so he closed his eyes. According to Blease, he then felt a hit in his chest, and suspects that he had been kicked. He fell backward, and started to scream out to them, he said.
Blease said that he then faked an asthma attack and asked the first officer to look inside his suitcase for an inhaler, because he believed that it was the only way to stop them from beating him.
The patrol officer went and looked, and that’s when the officer in black started to kick him and shout at him to get up off the ground, Blease explained.
Blease said that he didn’t get up, so the officer pulled him up and put him back into a kneeling position, and handcuffed him very tightly.
Blease said he requested to go to the hospital, but the officers didn’t take him; they instead responded to an accident victim.
According to Blease, the officer who he alleges hit him, rode off, and the patrol officers took him to the Belmopan Police Station, and he encountered the officer in charge.
He attempted to make a formal complaint against the officer in black, but the officer in charge told him that there was no officer at the Belmopan Police Station who wears black and was on duty that night, Blease stated.
Blease said that the officer in charge waited until the officer from the patrol branch, who had brought him in, returned. The officer corroborated the story that Blease was hit, but the officer claimed that he did not know the officer in black.
In the morning, the senior officer in charge heard Blease’s complaint, and he, too, agreed that what took place was wrong, but he also did not know who this man (the officer in black) was.
The officer from the patrol branch who brought Blease in, who has been identified by the charge sheet as PC #1079 Santiago Choco, ended up charging Blease with the offense of being armed with an offensive weapon, a machete that he had in the suitcase.
Blease said the he was arraigned for that charge, met bail, and was directed to go to the Internal Affairs Division (IAD). He said that he did go and make a formal complaint, and received a medical form which classified his injuries from the police officer in black as harm.
Since then, the investigation into Blease’s case of alleged police brutality is still pending. Blease said that he saw the officer, who he identified as the man who hit him for no reason, but the IAD keeps telling him that they don’t know who this man is.
Blease said that he knows for certain that this man is an officer who resides in the San Martin area.
He said that it is ridiculous that the IAD is dragging its foot in investigating this officer. It was unbelievable, Blease said, that PC Choco allowed an officer, who he claims he doesn’t know, to brutalize and embarrass him.
Blease concluded that the police are behaving as if they are a part of the judiciary, and they are handing down punishment without any proof. He said that he suspects that he was charged simply to degrade his reputation and his claim against the police department, which was submitted in a complaint to the IAD.
Due to time constraints, we were not able to reach the IAD office in Belmopan.