Ak­ile Si­mon

?Pop­u­lar so­ca artiste, Troy­don "Blaz­er" Cruick­shank, has pub­licly de­nied he was in­volved in a re­cent house-break­ing at­tempt in the Freeport dis­trict, af­ter he was ar­rest­ed by po­lice. The artiste was ar­rest­ed at his En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, home last Wednes­day by of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force in con­nec­tion with a re­port that his ve­hi­cle was seen be­ing dri­ven away from the scene of the crime. Cruick­shank was re­leased from cus­tody on Fri­day, af­ter he spent 48 hours at the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion. He was cleared by of­fi­cers of any wrong­do­ing in re­la­tion to the crime. The 30-year-old artiste promised to take le­gal ac­tion in the mat­ter.

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view, Cruick­shank de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a "mis­un­der­stand­ing." He said it was im­por­tant that he cleared his name, since the "re­ports" the me­dia could have a neg­a­tive ef­fect on his ca­reer. "The de­scrip­tion of the rob­bers did not fit the de­scrip­tion of a man with a Rasta­far­i­an hair­style... I have a Rasta­far­i­an hair­style," Cruick­shank said. "At the time when the of­fi­cers came to my home, I was asleep and there­fore, I could not be rob­bing and sleep­ing at the same time."This whole thing was a mis­un­der­stand­ing and the news­pa­pers were mis­led... I have no beef with any­one and this could af­fect my ca­reer."

He added he had loaned his ve­hi­cle to a fel­low res­i­dent. Cruick­shank ad­mit­ted that in in the past, he had a "lit­tle run-in" with the law. "That has been put be­hind me and I was nev­er con­vict­ed," he said. "I am try­ing to live a de­cent life right now and I have tak­en things down." To sub­stan­ti­ate Cruick­shank's side of the sto­ry, po­lice agreed the artiste had no in­volve­ment in the crime, even though his ve­hi­cle was iden­ti­fied as be­ing in­volved in the in­ci­dent. Two sus­pects, ages 28 and 26, are as­sist­ing po­lice with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing con­duct­ed by Cpl Edgar Ran­som of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Rob­bery Squad. (AS)