It was high drama in West Berbice yesterday when a woman and her 15-year-old daughter doused social workers and police officers with hot water and verbally abused and threatened them.
The officers from the Child Care & Protection Agency (CCPA), the School’s Welfare and the Probation Department were at the time investigating a report of neglect when they were met with the hostile treatment.
Reports are that the woman also has a 12-year-old son who is said to be mentally challenged. Neighbours claimed that the girl had gained a place at a secondary school in West Berbice but she never attended.
They also said that they hardly saw the children who never really left the house which is heavily grilled and has a trap door.
The windows were lined with bed-sheets along with the curtains and were said to be always closed up.
Stabroek News was told that after the CCPA officers received the report and sent the police on Wednesday afternoon to inquire.
Around 9:30 am yesterday, an officer from the CCPA returned with the police. The woman said she was sick and refused to come downstairs to meet them. They asked to see the children along with their birth certificates.
She responded that they were sleeping and they did not have birth certificates. At that stage the officers called for the assistance of a senior rank.
But even after he came the woman still refused to co-operate and they called for the Senior Probation & Welfare Officer, Dollette Nicholson.
Before that the woman and her daughter opened the door slightly and had a screw driver while using expletives and shouting that what goes on in their house was their business.
They were also heard dragging chairs in front of the doors.
When Nicholson arrived the girl started using racist remarks and continued the verbal abuse and threats to douse them with hot water.
The officers managed to open a trap door where the girl had placed her brother to sit and this angered the duo. Just then one of the officers noticed the woman with a pot and she shouted to the others to “run!”
She threw the water at them and a police officer got burnt while the officers’ belongings got wet. The girl also held a piece of nail-filled wood. The officers arrested the woman and when they tried to arrest the girl she put up a strong resistance.
The girl also grabbed an officer’s phone and threatened to destroy it. As the officer tried to take it away she held onto the officers’ shirt and tore it. She also ripped off the “stripe” from the police’s uniform.
When they handcuffed her she wriggled her hand out of it and they had to remove it and place it behind her back.
During the episode, the girl and her mother verbally abused and threatened the neighbours for making the reports against them.
