A Linden man, who the police arrested after they mistook him for `Fineman’ and the ex-husband of Alpha Hotel owner Roseanne Hall, is demanding a public apology from authorities saying he was embarrassed and his family shamed.
Randolph Baker of 726 One Mile, Wismar was released on Monday after more than eight hours in custody. He was arrested in Linden when he turned up at the station to renew his driver’s licence and according to him, he was initially mistaken for Guyana’s most wanted.
“The police had a newspaper in he hand with a photograph of ‘Fineman’ [wanted man Rondell Rawlins] and he keep asking me to look at it, but I refuse,” Baker said. “Then everyone in the station started looking at me as if I am a criminal. This thing had me confused because one of the police know me from the mining work I do.”
After he refused to look at the newspaper, Baker said, the police roughed him up and put him in the lock-ups at the Mackenzie station. He was allowed one phone call to his family before he was transported to the city and placed at Brickdam lock-ups. While there he repeatedly asked why he was being held and was later told about the missing hotelier.
Baker said he was usually in the interior working as miner and was not following the story of the woman’s disappearance. He was also not aware that police were looking for her ex-husband, Alex Barker who apparently bears a slight resemblance to him. The man said he was only clear on one thing which was that the police were holding him unlawfully.
Hall’s husband who was in police custody at the time was called to identify Baker and he told police that Baker was not the man they were looking for. He said the police were not satisfied and two women were called to look at him. They, too, said he was not the man. Baker said the women appeared to be relatives of the woman and on seeing him, they immediately said no.
However, the police still kept him in custody, only telling him that they had a valid reason for his detention. He said they never gave a reason after the persons failed to name him as the man but he was locked up for hours.
Baker’s sister, Ohio Thompson told Stabroek News yesterday that she abandoned her duties at work after receiving a call that her brother had been arrested because he looked like someone the police were looking for. The woman said she visited the Ministry of Home Affairs to have a word with the minister, but was referred to the Office of the Commissioner of Police. She travelled there and spoke with an officer who directed her to a commander. She said Commander Primo spoke with her and after making some calls he offered an apology. Commander Primo could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Thompson said the Commander apologized for the mix-up and told her that the police were releasing her brother. She then went to Brickdam and Baker was released. She said the Commander blamed poor policing work for the mix-up and promised that it would not happen again. However she is not happy.
The woman said the police shamed her brother and her family by arresting him and claiming first that he looked like ‘Fineman’ then saying he had something to do with the hotelier’s disappearance. She said if Baker was a rash person he could have reacted differently and the outcome might have been different.
“If my brother was not a calm person he would have lashed out at them with anger from the beginning and who knows what action they might have taken,” she reasoned. “They might have shot him dead and then said he was involved in something.”
Baker said he has worked in the interior for 21 years as a miner and is known by many police officers. He said the whole thing was strange because he was walking around Linden when he was at home and the police had an opportunity to pick him up then. The man said the incident has confused his 16 children who are now wondering why the police held their father.
The man said the police force owes him a public apology and that they cannot go around playing with people’s lives. He said the force needs to do better work than what they are currently doing.
Police had issued a wanted bulletin for Alex Barker called “Amkabima”, the ex-husband of Hall.
