Farm owner says police destroyed thousands of dollars in crops

Paul’s Avenue resident Jawanza “Sanga” Fraser has described a recent raid by police officers, which was carried out on a farm he operates, as “spiteful” and “senseless”.

On Thursday, January 29, police officers, armed with a search warrant, stormed a piece of property in Carrierre owned by Jason Minors. The raid included a search of Fraser’s farm, which is confusing to Fraser, as the warrant shown to Minors by the police did not include Fraser’s name.

Fraser said that police, during their search, destroyed a sizable portion of his ginger crop, ate his grapefruits, tangerines and coconuts and even left the property with a sack of ginger. They also interrogated one of his workers.

Fraser said that he was told that about 48 police officers took part in the search and at one point held hands in a straight line and went through his ginger field, although they had metal detectors and recently boasted of having a K-9 unit.

“I find the police doing spiteful things, because if you going by people place to search a farm, you don’t have to trample crops like that. You have metal detectors and you say you have a K-9 unit, walk with them and let them do the work.

“You can’t have police officers walking through a ginger field and mashing down ginger field; they mash down about half acre of ginger. That is real stupidness and they never even had a warrant for me,” said Fraser.

He said that the incident is upsetting, because in his estimation, he lost thousands of dollars in produce.

“Why they take and eat my produce? That’s not policing; that’s stealing and bad mind. They mind stink. They did not find anything illegal and they take my stuff,” said Fraser, who would like the police to operate more professionally when carrying out their duties.

Fraser said that he would not make a formal report about the incident, as his experiences with the police make him feel that he would get no justice or satisfaction in relation to his crops.