Frederick Eligio is a former police officer who has never been in trouble with the law - but Eligio says that yesterday, the law troubled him. The 47-year-old Caye Caulker resident came to our studios last night and showed us an injury that he claims the police caused. Eligio says he was visiting a friend on Cran Street when he was intercepted by three police officers attached to the CIB. They told him to leave the area which Eligio says he did. But when he circled back minutes later he was detained, and, he claims, manhandled. Here's his story.
Frederick Eligio, Alleges Police Brutality
"It was two of them in the vehicles, Paloma in the passenger side and a other policeman driving the vehicle. Paloma turned around and just started to choke me in the vehicle, twisted up my neck and asking me what me and the young man were talking about. They then took me to the station and they rubbed me down and told me to move from around the area.
I am in bad pain. I can't turn my neck good. I can't even swallow anything good. I came from Caye good, nothing was wrong with me. I am just here to hustle for me and my kids. I am not a bad because I don't live here.
Keith Swift,
Sir but people would find it hard to believe that the police would just pick you up for no reason. Why would they do that?
Frederick Eligio,
"That is what I want to know, that is what I want to know. I can't tell you for what. The only the thing the man told me was to move from around the area and I moved and went to catch my boat and that is when he met me again and told me if they didn't already tell me to move from around the area. They put me in the vehicle and then started to choke me."
Keith Swift,
Do you have a criminal record?
Frederick Eligio,
"I don't have any kind of record. I am an ex-police officer. I was there for ten years. I am straight, I don't even live here and I have to go through this. I have no problems with police, all the police men know me and we never have problems. I am a hustler star, I hustle. I have eleven children."
A doctor observed tenderness to the neck region and classified the injury as harm.
