Police Complaints Authority director David West is appealing to victims of police abuse not to publicise their ordeal in the media and instead come discreetly to the PCA and lodge a complaint, so that the officers involved will be none the wiser that they are being investigated.
West made the appeal during a PCA town meeting at the Santa Cruz Fire Station on Wednesday night.
Present at the meeting was Jerome Phyars, the fireman who was allegedly beaten by police officers outside a bar on Monday and later charged with resisting arrest and obscene language.
West told Phyars and his co-accused Dawud Muhammed that they should have come to the PCA instead of going to Ian Alleyne’s Crime Watch programme on CNC3.
Muhammed said that he went to the Crime Watch host so that the incident could be put in the spotlight and not be swept under the rug.
Muhammed, 33, suffered injuries to his left eye, windpipe and lower back, while his sister Atiya, 27, who tried to intervene when her brother was being assaulted, was choked, cuffed and kicked before being dragged on the ground.
Muhammed told the gathering that his sister was still hospitalised as she had not yet stopped bleeding.
Phyars, 29, suffered injuries to his left eye, face, right arm back and windpipe while another man who was not arrested, Bradley Caesar, 27, is partially deaf in the left ear after allegedly being slapped by one of the lawmen.
West had earlier told those gathered, including MP for St Ann’s East, Joanne Thomas, that his team did a survey in the Santa Cruz area. He said of 71 people who had responded, 30 per cent of them said they had a negative outlook of the police.
He emphasised that the police are not trusted and that the PCA was an independent body which does not answer to or have within its staff police officers.
“We don’t fear anyone, we have your back and we will do the best for you... I was appalled when I saw that video of the fireman being abused,” West said as he urged the crowd to come to them with any serious offence against a police officer.
West said many people refuse to report incidents of police misbehaviour as they are fearful of further victimisation, inaction by police officers, who they saw as being supporters of their colleagues, or do not want any further conflict with the police.
26 cases forward to CoP
He added one of the issues that land police in trouble was the “back door” intake of Special Reserve Police (SRP) officers into the police service.
West said police officers took six months to train while the SRPs took six weeks and therefore they are not properly trained.
This, he said, has been addressed by acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams, who has since stopped the recruiting of SRPs. West said officers needed training in how to deal with mentally ill people as well as the physically challenged.
West said for the year the PCA had sent 26 cases to the Commissioner of Police and have closed 200 files.
He added that they were trying to clear a backlog and begin investigating matters from 2014 and 2015.
He told the crowd that his team of investigators all had a background in investigative work, many of them were retired police officers and assured them that all complaints are treated with confidentiality.
He added that the PCA will also soon engage in training police officers in how to eradicate police corruption and how to treat with the public.
Before the night was over, Phyars told the crowd about the beating he allegedly suffered at the hands of police officers.
He said his son always wanted to be a police officer but after seeing his father on video being assaulted he had changed his mind.
Phyars and Muhammed both said that they thought the PCA was another arm of the police service and were skeptical to lodge a complaint with them as “police is for police.”
After being assured that the PCA was not an affiliate of the police service, the men made an official report to the PCA at the end of the meeting.