Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Ig­nor­ing the dan­ger to her­self, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Dar­lene Renn stepped be­tween a man and the woman he was beat­ing—a split-sec­ond de­ci­sion she be­lieves may have saved the woman’s life.

While many on so­cial me­dia have praised her brav­ery, Renn, who has 15 years’ ser­vice and is at­tached to the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit, said pro­tect­ing oth­ers is sim­ply part of who she is.

“I could not just stand by and al­low that to hap­pen to her be­cause I hon­est­ly feel that he would have killed her,” Renn told Guardian Me­dia.

Renn was at her apart­ment on Mon­day night when an­oth­er fe­male ten­ant knocked on her door and asked her to call the po­lice be­cause a woman need­ed help.

Mo­ments lat­er, she heard screams and saw a man drag­ging the woman vi­o­lent­ly along the ground. She im­me­di­ate­ly in­ter­vened and, de­spite iden­ti­fy­ing her­self as a po­lice of­fi­cer at­tached to the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit, he re­fused to re­lease the woman.

“He was shout­ing and say­ing it was none of my busi­ness,” Renn re­called.

The pe­tite vic­tim man­aged to break free and ran be­hind Renn. How­ev­er, the man, de­scribed as strong and ag­gres­sive, lunged at them, at­tempt­ing to grab the woman while as­sault­ing the of­fi­cer in the process.

“I held on to her be­cause he was vi­o­lent­ly pulling her, try­ing to get her back in­to the apart­ment. So he was pulling both of us. But she was fight­ing back too, and he was shout­ing and grab­bing both of us. He was re­al vi­o­lent,” Renn said.

The two women even­tu­al­ly man­aged to get in­side Renn’s apart­ment and locked the door. In a con­tin­ued fit of rage, the man smashed the glass in an at­tempt to gain en­try.

Renn said the 22-year-old vic­tim told her the at­tack be­gan in­side the apart­ment and that the man had threat­ened her with a cut­lass.

By the time po­lice ar­rived, the sus­pect had fled.

Both women were tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. The vic­tim suf­fered bruis­ing to her legs and soft tis­sue in­juries, while Renn al­so sus­tained soft tis­sue in­juries and swelling to the right side of her face.

Renn joined the Po­lice Ser­vice in 2011, start­ing in com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing be­fore mov­ing to the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit, now part of the Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit.

“It’s just a pas­sion I have to pro­tect peo­ple,” she said.

She al­so ex­pressed con­cern that some women re­main in abu­sive sit­u­a­tions due to a lack of self-worth.

She urged mem­bers of the pub­lic not to ig­nore signs of abuse.

“If you can stand by and see a woman be­ing beat­en, re­mem­ber you have a moth­er, a daugh­ter. If you put your­self in that po­si­tion, would you like that to hap­pen to them? Why wait un­til af­ter some­thing se­ri­ous hap­pens? Re­port it, call some­body, tell some­body. Be your broth­er’s keep­er,” she said.

Bar­rack­pore po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.