Police action triggers heated confrontation

A situation involving the police and a respected member of the Murray’s Village community threatened to get out of hand earlier this week.{{more}}

Last Tuesday, June 23rd, at around 8 pm, residents of Murray’s Village vociferously protested as police tried to apprehend Deptor Culzac, who residents believed was being unfairly treated and brutalized by the police.

Culzac, a former national cyclist, who is regarded as a being a positive role model in the Murray’s Village community, told his story to SEARCHLIGHT.

The mechanic by profession said he had just come from work and was going to his uncle’s shop, which he operates, to get a Guinness for someone.

Culzac said that when he was about to open the door, he saw police officers coming in his direction and someone nearby told him not to open the shop door because they (the police) will want to “search up” his shop.

He said that he responded by telling the guy that the police need a warrant to be able to search someone’s premises.

“The policeman heard me say that and come up and ask me what I mean by that, when I said that they need a warrant,” Culzac explained.

He said that the police told him that they want to search the shop and he told them to go ahead “because I know I had nothing illegal in there.”

According to Culzac, the police looked around and found nothing illegal.

“So I turned to walk outside and then he said that he going to search me, and use his gun to turn me around to face him,” Culzac said.

The young father told SEARCHLIGHT that he did not understand why the officer had to use his weapon to turn him around so he pushed it away and asked him “What all this for?”

According to Culzac, he also asked who was the officer in charge, as he kept backing away from the officer.

He said another officer then came and grabbed him, pinned him against the wall of the shop, while the other started cuffing him in his neck.

“I had on my helmet still so I was leaning forward to try and block the blows,” Culzac explained.

The helmet was broken up in the mêlée.

“Then I heard another officer run and come and shout out, ‘Boy, shoot he’,” Culzac said.

He said that by this time, the commotion had caused a crowd to gather, and he kept asking the police officers who were continuing to rain blows on him, who was in charge.

He was also calling out to the crowd to call his father.

The police eventually handcuffed him, but the angry crowd was not about to let the police take him away, and were pulling him in the opposite direction as the police tried to go with him, Culzac explained.

Meanwhile, his father, Emmanuel Walters, who lives nearby, was summoned.

An upset Walters told SEARCHLIGHT that as a law abiding person, he told his son not to fight back and to go with the police.

He, however, said that he couldn’t understand why the police would brutalize his son like that.

“The police going to too much extremes in the way they dealing with people,” Walters said.

“How can I cooperate with police, when the same police come back and mete out this thing?” Walters said, as he explained that it is precisely because of his son’s positive reputation that the crowd reacted that way.

“If was one of them bad boys, or someone who does give little trouble is one thing,” one angry resident said.

The police even had to fire two shots in the air in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

Culzac, accompanied by his father, eventually went with the police.

He was taken to hospital and spent the night locked up at the Police headquarters.

He was released the following day on station bail after being charged with assault and resisting arrest.

He is due to appear in a Kingstown Court on Monday, June 29th.

Meanwhile Commissioner of Police Keith Miller, at a press conference on Wednesday, June 24th, described the incident as “unfortunate.”

He commended Culzac’s father for insisting that his son go with the police and accused the crowd of blowing the situation out of proportion.

Miller said that when residents pulled Culzac away from the police they committed an offence.

“I have heard of these things happening in Trinidad, Guyana and Jamaica. It will not happen here,” Miller made clear.