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Police charge Leon Gentle, 30, for Vitalino Reyes, Jr. beating

CrimePolice charge Leon Gentle, 30, for Vitalino Reyes, Jr. beating

The tour guide, allegedly involved in a tour operators’ war, was charged with two indictable offenses

Tension between employees of two local tour companies erupted into violence Thursday evening, May 29, when the two groups met at a club on Coney Drive. The resulting melee left one man hospitalized in a critical condition and another man, from the rival company, facing two indictable offenses.

Belize City police have charged Cave Tubing.com employee Leon Gentle, 30, with one count of “use of deadly means of harm” and one count of “dangerous harm” against Vitalino Reyes, Jr.

This morning, Gentle, along with his attorney, Audrey Matura-Shepherd, appeared before Senior Magistrate Sharon Frazer, who arraigned him on the two charges.

But before Frazer read the charges, Matura-Shepherd told the court that Gentle was beaten while in police custody, and he was forced to participate in an identification parade.

Frazer noted for the court record that Gentle had conveyed to the court that he was punched in the chest, choked and hit in the jaw by police officers. As an illustration of the mistreatment he received from the police, he showed the court his torn shirt.

Before she read the charges to Gentle, Frazer told him that she did not require a plea from him, because the matters for which he has been charged are indictable and will be heard in the Supreme Court, “if it comes to that.

There was no objection to bail from the court prosecutor and Gentle was offered bail of $7,000 plus two sureties of $3,500. His matter was adjourned to July 24, 2014.

Outside the courtroom, after he had secured bail, Gentle and his attorney spoke to court reporters.

Matura-Shepherd said that Gentle had gone to the Belama Police Station to inquire why police had gone to his mother’s house looking for him. But police detained him at the station.

“I found out on Monday, when he was being forced to do an ID parade. I told the police that he would not do an ID parade, simple because Leon was not at the location,” Matura-Shepherd disclosed.

Matura-Shepherd added, “I was present when the police were interviewing all the other guys about who was at the location. They asked them specifically, was Leon there. They said no. Leon brought his alibi witness. The police had refused to even take a statement.”

“They got upset when I insisted that they have to take a statement,” said Matura-Shepherd, “If police are investigating, if they are even lying, you need to take that statement and investigate it.”

“Just when I finished giving advice to my client yesterday, they decided that they would force him into an ID parade. They dragged him out of the cell and that’s why his clothes is all torn,” Matura-Shepherd explained, “and then they dragged him out into the yard so that these alleged witnesses would then go and give a statement.”

“What is amazing is that one of the alleged witnesses was not even at the location, but police don’t really want to investigate; they just want to charge someone”, Matura-Shepherd went on to say.

“It’s unfortunately, out of the whole group, Leon is the only one who has a previous record. So he’s being targeted; he’s being profiled, and I think it’s unjust. So now we will now go and make a complaint, because the Bureau of Standards or the Standards Department has to know what’s happening,” Matura-Shepherd said.

According to Matura-Shepherd, on the night of the incident, three policemen responded to reports and went to the scene of the crime, and the police must interview those officers to know who was there and whom they spoke to. Matura-Shepherd said that Gentle got a police medico-legal form and a doctor at the hospital classified his injuries as harm.

At the station, Gentle’s alibi witness gave police a statement, but Matura-Shepherd said that some key points in the witness’ statement was omitted, and she had to insist that the officer who was taking the statement include those key points in the statement.

She said the police have to account for what happened to Vitalino, Jr., from the time he was picked up at Long Island Bar to the time he ended up at the KHMH.

“All the witnesses say when he was picked up he was conscious and walking. Yes, staggering, he had vomited and everything. But he did not leave there unconscious. Yet he was taken to the Belama Police Station. We don’t know all that happened there, but he was not taken to the hospital until about 8′ o’clock. They have to account for that,” Matura-Shepherd said.

Gentle said the police harassed him for about two to three hours, after his attorney had left the police station.

“They told me that food come from my mother, and when I reach out in the front they started choking me and all that stuff,” Gentle said.

The last report on Vitalino Reyes, Jr., was that after being badly beaten, he was still in a coma in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.

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