Tension rose in Linden yesterday after a protestor was beaten by a member of the police Tactical Services Unit (TSU) even as residents maintained roadblocks and vowed to continue their protest beyond the planned five days if there is no progress on meeting their demands.
With the protest – which initially started on Wednesday as one focusing on the hike in electricity tariffs but has since morphed into one that encompasses other issues including the fatal shooting of three men on Wednesday evening – set to continue indefinitely, at the start of Day Five yesterday, emphasis was placed on maintaining blocks, re-erecting those removed by the joint services, and the holding of an interfaith service. Ron Somerset, 18; Shemroy Bouyea and Allan Lewis, 46, were those killed after police fired on the protestors.
Since the shootings, the protest has intensified and tension has been under control but late yesterday things took a bitter turn with residents expressing anger as word circulated of a resident being beaten by the inspector who is in charge of the TSU in Linden. Collis Hall, a Linden/ Georgetown mini-bus driver was dealt several blows about his body while at a creek at the back of Kara Kara which was witnessed by civilians.
Hall told Stabroek News that he had just finished taking a bath in the creek when he noticed the TSU ranks. “Deh man just start beating up on me telling me how I is a thief and all kind a thing,” he said.
The man whose brother is a Captain in the GDF who was in Linden at the time, said that the TSU officer beat him about his body with his helmet and gun then dumped him in the tray of the police vehicle where other ranks continued beating him. The minibus driver said he was thrown face down in the vehicle with his head under the seat as the policemen kicked him and “mashed” on his back.
While the episode was unfolding in the isolated area where there was one of several road blocks in Kara Kara, divisional commander of police E&F Division, Gavin Primo, along with a Bosai official who is the Chairman of the Linden Station Management Committee, were heading there to check on the roadblock.
The Bosai logistics officer expressed disgust at the incident and told Stabroek News that Hall was key in ensuring that the company’s fuel tanker was allowed through the barrier at Kara Kara bridge earlier in the day.
Stabroek News was told that the two officials learnt of the incident when a group of men stopped and told them of it. Upon investigation, Hall was found in the tray of the TSU vehicle and was removed.
He was placed in the care of army ranks who were also heading to the location at the time.
The man was escorted to the McKenzie police station where he gave a formal statement before he was taken to the Linden Hospital Complex for treatment. Hall’s back bore multiple injury marks. “They took away my cell phone and about five thousand dollars I had in my pocket at the time,” he told Stabroek News adding that the cell phone was later returned to him.
Several others were on the scene at the time and some hid under the bridge as Hall was being beaten. Others including a GDF Officer expressed disgust at the behaviour of the TSU officer. “When persons told him (the inspector) that Primo who was already in hearing distance, he start cussing up…,” he said.
Meanwhile, as persons were gearing themselves for a total shutdown of electricity, those who were maintaining the roadblock at Kara Kara removed a section to allow Bosai’s fuel tanker in. The company usually stocks a five-day supply of fuel for the generation of electricity for the town.
The supply ran out yesterday afternoon. “We don’t want a situation where the whole town goes into darkness because we don’t want the criminals creeping in and messing up things.
Right now things are very peaceful and we want to keep it that way,” a resident who was at the bridge told Stabroek News.
Many yesterday expressed support for the protest to continue beyond the planned five days. “If it takes 55 days for this government to understand that we serious that’s what it’s gonna be,” said a woman who said that she has been walking miles daily to be at either of the blocks at Kara Kara or the Mackenzie/Wismar bridges.
Thus far, no senior government official has visited Linden to speak to residents in the aftermath of the killing of the three men.
