An­na-Lisa Paul

Even as con­dem­na­tion and calls for jus­tice for lo­cal sport­ing hero An­der­son Pe­ters con­tin­ued to grow across Grena­da yes­ter­day, As­sis­tant Supt Si­mon Dou­glas, of the Roy­al Grena­da Po­lice Force (RGPF), as­sured a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing con­duct­ed.

The reign­ing World javelin cham­pi­on was al­leged­ly beat­en and thrown over­board by a group of Tri­nis dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion on the Har­bour Mas­ter on Wednes­day.

The Grena­da gov­ern­ment, in a state­ment on Thurs­day, said it was “deeply sad­dened” by the sit­u­a­tion.

“The facts are still un­known, but the per­sons in­volved are cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing the po­lice with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, which are ex­pect­ed to be swift. The gov­ern­ment of Grena­da un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demns vi­o­lence of any kind and calls on all cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors to main­tain a pos­ture of re­spect for dif­fer­ing per­spec­tives, and to opt for ra­tio­nal de­bate over ex­treme be­hav­iour,” it stat­ed.

“Prayers and well wish­es for a speedy re­cov­ery are ex­tend­ed to An­der­son Pe­ters and all oth­er per­sons in­jured dur­ing the al­ter­ca­tion. May God grant us heal­ing as a na­tion.”

The Har­bour Mas­ter and Ocean Pel­i­can cruise boats are owned by Trinida­di­an Adri­an Scoon and are cur­rent­ly op­er­at­ing in Grena­da.

Pro­vid­ing an up­date on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion yes­ter­day, Dou­glas con­firmed six Trinida­di­an crew mem­bers were de­tained by Grena­di­an au­thor­i­ties.

And while no one has as yet been charged in con­nec­tion with Pe­ters’ re­port­ed as­sault, Dou­glas said emerg­ing in­for­ma­tion on so­cial me­dia point­ed to oth­er in­ci­dents oc­cur­ring aboard the Har­bour Mas­ter in re­cent days.

Grena­da’s Spice­mas 2022 was held dur­ing the pe­ri­od Au­gust 3 to 10 and the two Trinida­di­an par­ty boats host­ed sev­er­al events dur­ing that time.

Grena­di­an of­fi­cials con­firmed the req­ui­site per­mis­sion was ob­tained by the own­er/op­er­a­tor of the ves­sels to con­duct ac­tiv­i­ties.

A video of the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Pe­ters showed him en­gaged in a phys­i­cal al­ter­ca­tion with sev­er­al men, dur­ing which time he was punched and kicked, be­fore be­ing tossed over­board.

The med­ical con­di­tion of Pe­ters, who claimed sil­ver in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Com­mon­wealth Games, was un­known up to late Thurs­day.

Of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion up to 4 pm Thurs­day, Dou­glas said, “We are still at the stage of them be­ing ques­tioned and so, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is still un­der way and we can­not say if they will, or will not be charged.”

Asked to com­ment on a so­cial me­dia claim that fe­male pa­trons were al­leged­ly ha­rassed whilst aboard the Har­bour Mas­ter as they at­tend­ed a par­ty in the last week, Dou­glas said, “We have not had any of­fi­cial re­ports but there are sev­er­al posts now on so­cial me­dia where peo­ple are com­plain­ing about the treat­ment they suf­fered on the same Har­bour Mas­ter from the crew mem­bers.”

He added, “We can­not say for a fact whether any of our po­lice sta­tions re­ceived com­plaints and now this is hap­pen­ing…we may find out a com­plaint was made be­fore and no big deal was made about it.”

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted warn­ings could have been is­sued to the ves­sel op­er­a­tor if such re­ports had been re­ceived.

In­di­cat­ing that the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion did not pre­clude the boat from con­tin­u­ing to host sched­uled events, Dou­glas was un­cer­tain if oth­er de­vel­op­ments could im­pact the de­par­ture of the ves­sel from Grena­da.

Calls and mes­sages to Scoon went unan­swered yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, a re­lease from Har­bour Tours Ltd stat­ed: “The re­cent vi­o­lence on our ship in­volv­ing An­der­son Pe­ters is dis­heart­en­ing to both our man­age­ment and staff. We em­phat­i­cal­ly de­clare that we do not con­done acts of vi­o­lence of any kind.”

“We un­der­stand the pub­lic’s con­cern and the over­all sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Cur­rent­ly, the full de­tails sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent are still forth­com­ing, but we are work­ing with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to gain a clear­er un­der­stand­ing of what oc­curred. We will work with all in­volved to en­sure there is an am­i­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion,” it stat­ed.

Ath­let­ic bod­ies con­demn as­sault

The St David’s Track Blaz­ers (SDTB), of which Pe­ters is a mem­ber, added their voice to those con­demn­ing the in­ci­dent.

In a re­lease, the SDTB said, “The SDTB ve­he­ment­ly re­proves such treat­ment of one of Grena­da’s most suc­cess­ful ath­letes, but more so such treat­ment be­ing met­ed out to a hu­man be­ing.”

Tthe club added, “Rest as­sured that we will sup­port An­der­son and his fam­i­ly through­out this or­deal and will con­tin­ue to pro­vide emo­tion­al, phys­i­cal, and phys­i­o­log­i­cal sup­port.”

Mean­while, the Grena­da Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (GAA) crit­i­cised what they re­ferred to as, “the cow­ard­ly ac­tions of some five per­sons who phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed our na­tion­al sport­ing icon and hero.”

Claim­ing Pe­ters did not suf­fer any life-threat­en­ing in­juries, the GOC con­demned, “these bar­bar­ic ac­tions and look for­ward to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tions against all the per­pe­tra­tors.”

The GOC al­so called for an ex­pe­di­tious res­o­lu­tion of the mat­ter.