Yet another Guyanese citizen has accused ranks of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) of brutality. In fact, Nicholas Bacchus of Hope Estate, East Coast Demerara says that police ranks threatened to kill him even as his wife and five children watched. According to Bacchus, just after midnight into Saturday morning on March 19, GPF ranks woke him up and accused him of selling drugs. Bacchus said, “When I open de door, them man start telling me about some drugs and run in me house… Me wife had on she bare tights and them man run in me house, and start tumble up and so… I start to explain to them that I get five children in this house.”
After nothing was found by the Police, Bacchus related what happened next. “Them [police] start telling me about the drugs and that they will kill me… me wife deh watching them through the door and them tell me tell me wife go inside and lock up before [the police] shoot up everybody.” Me start holler pon me wife cause me nah want me wife and me pickney them get hurt. When me wife lock in the door, them [police] tell me kneel down, [one policeman[ go to he waist, pull out he gun, crank it, and put it to me head.” The traumatised man said that the police left after people in the area came out of their homes in response to the commotion.
Accusations of police excesses and even extra-judicial killings are nothing new as relates to the GPF. The killing of businessman Orin Boston of Hoppie Street, Dartmouth in Region #2 in September of last year is a poignant reminder. Boston was fatally shot in the wee hours of the morning by a rank of the GPF as he slept beside his wife Feona Boston. The terrified woman had said, “My husband had showered and retired to bed. He did not even have on clothes when [police] went into the room, kicked down the door and pointed the gun towards him, they shot [him], all I heard is a loud gunshot sound.”
She said that ranks were all over the house with guns and her two children, ages 6 and 7, witnessed the entire ordeal.
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