By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 4th January 2019)- Members of the public are currently engaged in a widespread debate on the topic of how locals are allegedly handled by police compared to the recent arrest of tourist couple at a local hotel in Frigate Bay on New Year’s Day (Tuesday ).
A police statement issued last night (Thursday) revealed that the incident is currently under investigation.
“The High Command notes, with great concern, the contents of a video that involves two visitors and two Police Officers currently being circulated in the public domain. The High Command of The Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force has launched an investigation to look into all the circumstances surrounding the arrest and release of the two visitors that occurred when two Police Officers responded to a report of an incident at a hotel in the Frigate Bay area on January 01, 2019.”
It is understood that the couple is back home in the US.
Individuals, through social media, have been comparing the arrests of locals at the recent held Sugar Mas 47 J’ouvert as well as other past incidents in claiming that if locals were involved in the hotel incident, the police would have reacted differently in handling the situation.
A cellphone video footage spanning some 4 minutes and 39 seconds shows the altercation between two local officers in uniform and the caucasian (white) male-female pair.
The man can be heard swearing at one of the cops while an individual believed to be an employee at the hotel attempts to diffuse the situation.
At one point, the man is seen rushing to attack that same officer but fails to do so as the hotel worker intervenes in pushing the officer aside out of the man’s reach while trying to appeal to the attacker to behave.
The man’s wife/girlfriend is see trying to pull him away from going at the officer also. However, the situation escalates and the man gets a closer reach of the officer while the other cop tries to assist his colleague from the attacker which soon after saw the man’s girlfriend/wife pulling the officer by his shirt to let go of her boyfriend/husband.
Shortly thereafter, the man was handcuffed and the woman held in a restrained manner before being led through the hotel lobby and on the outside