Ali­cia Llanos

Wayne Roberts, the TSTT work­er who said he was beat­en by po­lice of­fi­cers in Port-of-Spain on Mon­day when he tried to get help for an ail­ing woman, says cit­i­zens should not to lose faith in the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Roberts made a tear­ful plea dur­ing a news con­fer­ence, called by the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers' Union (CWU), at its of­fice on Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. He said: "Don't give up on the Po­lice Ser­vice." He said what hap­pened to him was the re­sult of two in­ex­pe­ri­enced of­fi­cers who lacked prop­er train­ing. Roberts said he was beat­en by the of­fi­cers af­ter he ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the of­fi­cers' lack of ac­tion when he sought help from them for a woman who had col­lapsed on the road.

The in­ci­dent hap­pened at low­er Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain. Roberts re­ceived blows to the head and about the body. Roberts was tak­en to Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion and then to Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he re­ceived treat­ment for his wounds. He was ar­rest­ed by the two of­fi­cers who charged him with us­ing ob­scene lan­guage, re­sist­ing ar­rest and in­sul­tive lan­guage. Roberts de­nied us­ing ob­scene lan­guage but ad­mit­ted to telling the of­fi­cers: "Ya'll op­er­at­ing like imps." He said he had sought le­gal coun­sel but could not say what ac­tion was be­ing tak­en.

Roberts said he did not want to see the of­fi­cers face any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tions but in­stead want­ed them to re­ceive ad­di­tion­al train­ing to be able to han­dle sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances in a dif­fer­ent man­ner. Pres­i­dent of the CWU, Joseph Re­my, called on the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Em­manuel George and Min­is­ter of Labour Er­rol Mc Leod to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.

Re­my said: "The CWU pub­licly con­demns this in­stance of ob­scene po­lice vi­o­lence." He said an at­tack on a com­mu­ni­ca­tion work­er was es­sen­tial­ly an at­tack on the union, adding the union was pre­pared to take ac­tion against the of­fi­cers. In a news re­lease late yes­ter­day act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert said he was con­cerned about the in­ci­dent. Philbert said he has as­signed a se­nior in­ves­ti­ga­tor to speed up the probe.