(Audio) TSU scribe grilled over omitting body checks for ammo

Constable Osafo Timmerman, who was responsible for taking notes on behalf of the Tactical Services Unit (TSU) at Linden on July 18, yesterday faced questions over his failure to record body checks made on the deployed ranks for extra ammunition, which was only mentioned in a statement he gave the next day.

“Could it be sir that by the 19th, y’all realised that Double 0 or some strange ammunition was used and you were trying to cover your tracks? …Could it be that by the 19th, when you made this statement, you had to cover because you were aware that ammunition that was not official police ammunition was actually discharged by the police?” attorney Nigel Hughes, who is representing the interest of the families of the three men who were shot and killed during the protest action, asked the witness.

Guyana Police Force attorney Peter Hugh, however, said that the witness was being asked to speculate. Hughes, however, continued to question why Timmerman made no mention in his minute by minute record from July 18 that ranks were body checked for extra ammunition but on July 19 did so in his statement.

“That is in my statement. As I sit and write my statement, I just put in everything that come back,” the constable responded.
In his statement, Timmerman noted that every rank of the TSU half unit that was deployed to Linden was “checked for extra ammunition” by Assistant Superinten-dent Patrick Todd twice that day in Linden.

Under cross-examination by Hughes, the witness said that it was normal practice for ranks to be body checked before any exercise. However, he subsequently disclosed that the exercise at Linden was his first and so he had not known whether it was protocol.

Timmerman said he only recorded what he was told to by Todd. “Every time he did something, he told me to write,” the rank said. Asked by Chairman of the Commission, Justice Lensley Wolfe, whether there was any information he recorded that was not done at the instruction of Todd, he responded in the negative.

“I didn’t want to do anything wrong sir,” Timmerman told Commissioner Cecil Kennard, who asked if he observed anything he had not written.

Osafo Timmerman
David Vigilance

“I told Mr. Todd that this is my first time as a recorder and he told me that everything he tell me to write, I must write and he will guide me… if Mr. Todd said at this time write that I did,” he added, after being questioned by Com-missioner Claudette Singh as to how he executed his duties.

According to Timmerman, around 6pm he was told by Todd that he was going to a meeting with former E&F Division Commander Clifton Hicken and the ranks of the TSU and the Linden Unit. In his minutes, Timmerman wrote, “ASP Stanton, Inspec-tor Williams and Sergeant English with Hicken instructed all the ranks of Linden to uplift shotguns.” He initially told the commissioners that it was the first time he saw this statement and added “this thing tricky.” He later admitted that he wrote the statement.

Todd had told the commission that Hicken had instructed him and the TSU unit to report on the Wismar/ Mackenzie Bridge, explaining that he received a call from the Commissioner of Police instructing that the bridge must be cleared before it gets dark. Todd had not mentioned the meeting Timmerman spoke of.

Audio

COI Hearing 30/10/12

COI Hearing – 30-10-12 Part 4

COI Hearing – 30-10-12 Part 5

COI Hearing – 30-10-12 Part 6

The witness yesterday told the commission that he remained with Todd until he was asked to assist with the clearing of the bridge. “I only had my notebook and pen and wasn’t heavily armed, so I stayed back,” he said, later stating that he stuck his book in his belt while his weapon, a .38 revolver remained in his holster.

Kennard, after learning of Timmerman’s multitasking, asked “are you sure this book wasn’t prepared after the 18th?” The witness responded in the negative.

‘The policeman beat me’
Earlier, beverage vendor David ‘Black Boy’ Vigilance became intensely emotional as he testified to having been beaten by police, during which he lost a bag of money and hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewellery.
According to Vigilance, he went out on the day of the protest to sell at about 4:30pm close by to the toll booth near the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge. He said that the police arrived around 5:30pm and he subsequently observed them shooting in the direction of the crowd on the bridge.

“I took cover behind my beverages. I wasn’t shot, I was beaten. The policeman beat me… I was in my stand and after they start shooting and they near meet the bridge, I start hollering and one of the policeman dragged me out the stall and start to beat me and drag me, buss off me thing them and throw me in the vehicle. He kick me about my body and gun butted me above my left eye, nuff of them went by the jeep. These man dragged me and beat me,” he told the commission.

He stated that one of the ranks who beat him was from Berbice, which he could tell by his accent.
“He is a country man… I know them and then he throw me in the vehicle and one of them that know me say that, ‘No, you can’t do Black Boy that’ and then he told me to jump out the vehicle and then I run back to me stall fuh pick up me bag of money and then when I look fuh it me ain’t got nothing,” he recalled.

Vigilance is seeking compensation for the loss of his jewellery. “I had on me chain. I does go in the bush and wuk. Meh chain is an ounce valued $300,000. I had on meh ring them, the is ten pennyweight. $15,000 a pennyweight for gold so the is a $150,000 for one ring,” he told the commission. He was not asked how many rings he lost.

When asked by attorney Basil Williams who was responsible for him losing his jewellery, Vigilance said, “is them (police) ’cause me ain’t do nothing. I went in meh stand and I went out they way.”

Hugh asked the witness whether he had ever made a police report of the matter. “We couldn’t go to the station at them time duh, because we want to keep away from the police them time,” the man said, noting that he had not made any report to the police although he was advised by Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon to go to the station. “I scared of the police. Me ain’t want go ’round the police because if they ill-treating me, me ain’t want go,” he further stated.

He said at the Mackenzie Hospital he was given no medical certificate, although he relayed that he was beaten by the police. “Meh eye swell up, meh face get mark,” he stated.

Mortimer O’Neil Cornell Junior also testified and said that he was a passerby when he was shot at the Mackenzie shore at Linden on July 18. He said he received medical attention from the Mackenzie Hospital but was also given no medical certificate. He too is seeking compensation.