St. Lca: Police brutality

Janita said she and her cousin had just stopped by the Criminal Investigations Department to drop off lunch for a male cousin who’d been arrested on suspicion of robbery. He was supposed to have been charged the day before—within the 48-hour time period—but still hadn’t been. As it turned out, Janita would get a lot more than she’d bargained for.

Upon her arrival at CID, she said, she handed the meal over to an officer and requested that she speak with her cousin. She was asked to wait outside. After nearly 30 minutes, she said, “the officer came out and asked me to come inside. He told me he had a warrant to search my house.”

Janita claimed she was taken aback by his sudden eclipse. She questioned the purpose of the search and it wasn’t long before hesitation set in. Her cousin neither lived with her nor visited, she insisted.

Said Janita, “He told me he had a search warrant, anyway, but didn’t show me that warrant until he’d arrived at the house.”

But Janita would accept none of this.

“I told him I wanted to call my lawyer but was told I could not use their phone,” she told the STAR. “It was then that I reached for my bag to use my cellular.” She said the police officers insisted that she handed over her mobile phone, but she continued to dial nevertheless.

“A female officer came out of nowhere, grabbed me by the throat and shoved me on a wall. She tried to take the phone from me,” she recalled. “I grabbed her back and two male officers held my hands while she pulled the phone away. I told them I was not going home. They told me if I wouldn’t cooperate they would handcuff me. So I proceeded to their vehicle.”

There was a short stop along the route. Janita was driven to her shop on Coral Street to pick up her house keys—accompanied throughout by police officers. After this, she was brought to her home in Summersdale where a thorough search for supposedly stolen property was conducted.

“They found nothing, drove me right back and dropped me off at CID and that was it,” she cried. “I was mistreated. I was really scared because two male officers were holding my hands and the other lady [officer] had me by the throat. They threatened to arrest and charge me—even threatening to put me in a cell and take me to court the next morning! For what? Just because I asked to speak with my lawyer?”

Read the whole. Who's going to guard the guards?