It went un-reported, but yesterday afternoon a young man was stabbed. Tonight, there are no official details on who was stabbed or what's his condition, but a popular southside personality Sigmund "Saarge" Trapp says he knows very well what happened to his sons because of that stabbing! He says that, police, in their zeal to try to take a proactive approach to contain any retaliatory action that might spring from the stabbing, brutalized 5 young men three of them his children. We spoke to the young men who recounted to us how they were beaten with a vehicle's fan belt.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
15-year-old Sherrick, 17-year-old Travis and 20-year-old Herchel Trapp along with 16-year-old Peter Myvette and 16-year-old Jaffett Stevens showed us welts on their bodies. Peter had the most injuries with multiple lacerations to the neck and back while the other young men had varying degrees of injuries to the ankles, arms and hands. They say these were meted out to them at the hands of the police who picked them up yesterday evening and beat them with a vehicle's fan belt.
Jaffett Stevens,
"The police man beat us up and lashed us up and thing, wailed up we with a belt and punched us up."
Herchel Trapp,
"They beat we up and thing, whapped us up."
Sherrick Trapp,
"They lashed us up three times. Every time the man went into the room, he came out with an anger and he just lashed we up."
Alfonso Noble,
What was he using to beat you?
Herchel Trapp,
"A fan belt, like one of those big truck fan belt. The length was at least like this and thick. He turned it over on the side which has the groove and started to lash us up. The third time he told us he would turn it over and we will get dosed wicked. Just like that he told us."
Peter Myvette,
"The man just started to grab me and he starting to knocking me in my face and kicking me up and started to whap me up with the fan belt for no kind of reason. We didn't do those young boys anything."
Sigmund Trapp, Father
"As I looked at my son I could have noticed Herchel, his lip was swollen. So I asked him what happened and before he could answer me, the policeman who we know as Hunch in the street, said he gave them an ass'n. So I told him that he finally did what he decided to do a long time ago because he had promised me that whenever he saw them up there again he would have given them an arson. Anyway, Mr. Jeffries was on the phone and it so happens that after he came off the phone he told me that he ordered for them to get an ass'n and in the future, if anytime they meet them on Amara Avenue, they will beat them again."
The young men say they were picked up yesterday sometime between 3 and 4 in the evening and taken to the Yarborough Police Sub-station and from there transferred to the Raccoon Street Police Station. They claim it was to have a sit down with another group of young men from the Yarborough area with whom they'd had a confrontation earlier on in the day. This led to one young man being stabbed and a subsequent retaliation attempt which Sigmund Trapp witnessed. He is the father of three of the young men.
Sigmund Trapp,
"I noticed two young men, which I know very well, come across on the east part of Kut Avenue. On getting to the center I saw them make a u-turn and it seems like that exchanged words with the same young men but after making the u-turn they continued on to the west side of Kut Avenue and when they continued on, about ten feet from the intersection, I noticed Richie Wallace turn around
and started to pull out a 9 millimeter at which time the four young men started to ride off. Well I could observe that in that crowd, the four young men, one of them was my son."
Travis Trapp,
"It was not like we were giving the problem, the young man pulled the gun on and those two young boys. And if we didn't run off, they would have had to pick up one of us from out there."
In an attempt to intervene and quell any retaliation, the police picked up both parties and that's when these five young men say they were misled into believing that the problem would have been solved. Instead they came out bruised and abused by the police.
Herchel Trapp,
"They called two police truck. They took us from the south side police station to Raccoon Street and told us that Crispin Jeffries wanted to see us. So I went with my little brothers to see what they wanted and when we reached at the police station at Raccoon Street, in front of Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Grinage
and Miss Wallace and Miss Lisbey and them, we were in the room and we were explaining our side of things and they didn't want to hear what we were saying. They told us to shut up. They put the young boys outside and I was in the room still talking to Mr. Jeffries and he didn't want to hear what I had to say. They put me outside and left Miss Longsworth in there, Miss Wallace in there, Miss Pamela in there, and after that the officer they called Mr. Hunch came out with a big belt and started to approach the young men, the three brothers and the two young men, and started to lash them and kick them and punch them with his hands. I witnessed that. Most of it was not with a belt, most of it was hand and foot with a next officer assisting them.
I approached them and asked them to please ease my brother because they were chancing my brothers and they didn't to go through this. They told me to get out of the way and move if I didn't want to feel more. I talked to one of the officers to eased my brothers and officer Hunch came and lashed me across my back with the belt. He told me to get out of the room because I was witnessing him beat up my brother you dig. They took the young men for a peace treaty but no peace treaty happened in the room. They didn't want to hear anything the young men had to say."
Travis Trapp,
"Paloma took Peter downstairs and I don't know what they did Peter but they brought him out back with the fan belt and right after that they started to beat Peter first and then they started to beat all of us. They put us into one small corner and lined up all of us and beat us."
Today Sigmund Trapp says he can understand the work the police are doing and supports it, but he that the police need to be fair. He adds that while there were two groups of young men involved only one of them was disciplined in this manner.
Sigmund Trapp,
"I say Mr. Jeffries is going a good job, Miss Lis is doing a good job but most likely they can't favortize the other families and just focus on one side of the problem and not focus on both side of the problem because the problem is there between both sides and it so happens that the young people are very mischievous. How could we know that when the one who got jucked when he went out there, he could have done the young man who did him some thing because the young man who jucked him is a small little boy, he is about four feet tall and has about 95 pounds and the other one who got jucked is much bigger.
My point which I try to clear is that why is it that they beat my children so bad. Is it that this is something personal? Is this police work or is the way that police carry out their duties and just get out there and brutalize people to prove their point to stay home, don't go out there on the street, or don't hang and stuff like that.
Its very obvious, if I heard that the police men are beating my children that kind of way, which in I discipline my children, I know that these children in Belize right now, those young men are very mischievous and thing but most likely if they were taken out to have a talk with the police or even the other young men who they had an altercation with, I think a talk is a talk and if any disciplining or action goes on by the policemen, I don't think they should only beat one side of the crowd, they should discipline everybody. And how about the young man who really hauled the gun out, nothing was discussed about that."
Alfonso Noble,
Do you think this is a problem you can easily resolve, if you really go and talk to these young men and just call off whatever you have?
Herchel Trapp,
"Its that we went to try and do yesterday but how they treated us, it is like they didn't even want to hear anything from us. When my brother told Mr. Jeffries he wanted to talk to him, Mr. Jeffries told him he didn't even want to hear anything from him. It was like we are doing all the problem this side but those young men mess with us when they meet us."
Alfonso Noble,
Will you all go to hang out by Amara again?
Herchel Trapp,
"No we aren't going to hang out there again because they already told us that if they meet us, they will take us back and do the something again."
Alfonso Noble,
And you are afraid the police will pick you up again?
Herchel Trapp,
"Yes because he told us that if he even meets us home, we will have to run upstairs into our house because even up there he will come for us."
Alfonso Noble,
Would you have had such a big problem with it if everybody in the crowd was disciplined in this manner?
Sigmund Trapp,
"Well I wouldn't have any problem with it at all because it would have shown that the job that Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Longsworth is doing is, they are very much working hard on all the young men in the area, not only by having meetings but putting them through discipline and let them know that no foolishness will be tolerated from any of them, not only on one side. So I believe they should have disciplined all the young men. Put all of them together and if they only wanted to talk, talk to them but if they want to lash them, lash all of them and let all of them understand that we want this foolishness to stop."
Police Press Officer G. Michael Reid said he is aware of the incident but would not comment further on the matter.
