Twenty nine year old Cayo taxi driver Bernard Anderson is in the KHMH tonight. He was rushed into the city by ambulance at 1:00 this morning. That’s after San Ignacio Police became worried about his poor health – a condition produced by a beating that police allegedly put on him. The resident of San Ignacio was reportedly brutalized by four police officers yesterday. It started when police picked him up from his home to question him about an armed hold up and robbery at Anthony’s Supermarket on Tuesday, September second.
Today his common law wife Vanessa Molina told us that he was not taken directly to the police station but to a location off the Benque Road where the four policemen proceeded to beat him. She says there is no way her husband could have committed the crime because he was laid up at home sick for several days, and moreover, she was with him when the robbery occurred. Lending credibility to her report are reports reaching 7News which say that the victim of the hold-up and robbery does not believe it was Bernard Anderson who held him up.
Molina says Anderson is an innocent victim who was assaulted by police and they must be held accountable for their actions.
Vanessa Molina, Wife of Beating Victim
“He run taxi but because he is sick from Sunday he didn’t come out none at all. He turned off his phone and didn’t come out. He was with me at that time when they said the robbery was occurring. We didn’t even
know about no robbery until when the police reached at my house and banged the door and we asked who that. They said police, open the door and we got up and opened the door. I said maybe something is happening around the neighbourhood and we get up and opened the door and he said you dah Banner, you have to go with we because you are under an investigation for a robbery and then he said to go put on a socks and a tennis and so he hauled on the slippers and he went.
So he went, I wake up my kids and I took them to my mom and I told my mom that they just went with Banner and she said they can’t go with him for something he didn’t do. She said he doesn’t come out none at all so I had my mom there as a witness. And then we left the children with my older brother and we went to the police station and we asked why is it that they took him, for what reason. The police man said for a robbery which happened at Anthony’s. I said why him because we were at home, we were already sleeping when they reached and then I told him it can’t be. And then they said yes, he is the one who did the robbery and I left it so.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“Did you explain to him that your husband was home sick for the last several days?”
Vanessa Molina,
“Yes mam I did. I told them that he is sick. When they went to pick him up home they said to please don’t rough me up, I have pain, I am sick and the policeman said okay but I didn’t know that before we reached at the station they had already took him to Benque Road already and went to beat him up.
And now when I am seeing him, he told me that it is to the Benque Road they took him and they picked up sticks and started to beat him and kicked him with their boots.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“What injuries did your husband receive?”
Vanessa Molina,
“Well his right shoulder, he can’t move it, it is out of place, it is bruised. On his legs are the marks from the stick which they beat him with and the marks he has in his belly and right here where they dashed him on the ground. I don’t know why they had to do that because I know he is innocent.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“What is the family planning to do about this?”
Vanessa Molina,
“Well I nuh di think to leave it like this because I know he is innocent and I didn’t like the way they went there and my children were sleeping and I know he is innocent. So I am not planning to leave this. I want somebody to do something about it.”
When we spoke with Vanessa Molina outside the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital we were not allowed to see Bernard Anderson because he was still in police custody. Late reports from Cayo are that police are closing in on arresting three men for the armed hold-up.
