Police officials deny the connection between incidents where a Corporal was beaten by a fellow policeman and an incident where the corporal’s family protested against police brutality, after his brother was allegedly killed by police in a case of mistaken identity.
Diana Bethel, mother of Deron Bethel, who was killed in front of his home in March, when police officers mistook him for another person, said she feels as if she and her family are walking around with a red painted bull’s eye on their foreheads as a target for police victimization, ever since she started protesting against the death of Deron.
However, Commissioner of Police of The Royal Bahamas Police Force, Paul Farquharson, issued a press statement that refuted that these allegations were connected.
“This incident resulted from a dispute between the two officers,” the release read. “We can confirm and are satisfied that there is no connection between this incident and any other incident being investigated by the police.”
However, Diana Bethel believes that her other son’s (Dwayne Bethel) “run in” with police officers, as he waited to get on his police shift, is an example of what her family had to endure.
“Dwayne was parked in his van which has Deron’s picture airbrushed on both sides and is in big writing at the Carmichael police station of the Central Detective Unit,” described Mrs Bethel. “He had a tam on his head and was listening to music, when three officers from the main CDU office, the same ones who killed Shacky [Deron Bethel], came up to his van in the police parking lot and shined a light in his van and told him to turn down his music.
“He said one came to the driver’s side of the door, pulled him out, held a gun in his face and gun butted him about three times in his head until his tam fell off and they noticed who he was. Then they told him sorry.”
The police statement described how the incident involving Dwayne Bethel and Constable Jamile Ferguson, resulted in both men receiving bodily injuries. The statement also disclosed that Ferguson was being charged with the offence of causing harm to Detective Bethel. Ferguson was arraigned Monday and was granted bail in the amount of $1,000. His matter was adjourned until Tuesday, October 10.
Mrs Bethel added that she and her son Dwayne were of the same opinion that it was the van with Deron’s picture that attracted the plain-clothes police officers, who came in an unmarked car. She said they believed that anybody who was in the vehicle at the time the police spotted the van, would have been targeted.
“Dwayne went to the hospital [Saturday] night and had to get a double layer of stitches inside and out,” said the mother. “He had to get so many to stitches, that the doctor said she miscounted.”
By: INDERIA SAUNDERS, The Nassau Guardian
