And while those people live on George Street or are associated with the George Street gang, others who were simply at the wrong place and wrong time were caught up in the same police sweep. Two of them are Zane Galvez and Darwin Conourquie. Zane is the brother of the slain Chris Galvez and he says he was delivering some liquor to the George Street base for the Charles Woodeye wake. Darwin Conourquie is a Chanel 7 employee and has been one for years. He lives in Lake I and was in the area for the carnival camp parade later that evening. They both told us how they got caught up in the sweep, roughed up and detained:...
Zane Galvez
I put up my two hands, I was not resisting arrest. I was not intimidating or doing anything. I am trying to explain to them because they started to beat the guys, as I was at the back of the house, behind everyone nearly to the wall at the back of the house and they started to beat the guys from the front coming right down. I was trying to tell the officer 'please officer hold on let me explain a little second, I just come to deliver I am not here, I am not in this. I don't know nothing that is happening', and the guy looked at me for like two seconds while I was on the ground, like he was considering if he should listen to me or not and I don't know what went through his mind and he came down at my head with a baseball bat. The force he was coming with at my head, I was just lucky enough to put my arm in the way to block the blow. The Doctor told me, the force he was coming with - If it would have hit my head, I would probably be unconscious or in a coma. Because it's severely broken and I will have to take surgery to fix back the bone and all of that. I mean it was crazy, and when they finally pick us up, they started to break everything in the house. They throw down the TV, they kick over the sofa, they kick down the table, they break up all the liquor that the guys had just bought, including the case of Heineken that I went to deliver and throw down all the food on the ground. When I finally walked outside to see the seen outside, it was just a seen of chaos with women and men crying, kids crying, men covered with blood. That is all I could have seen and then they were pepper spraying people for no reason. The officer would walk pass you and you would already have your hands up and he would just spray it in your face (shiiii) direct in your face, walk pass and just taser you. I mean, what kind of treatment is this? We are not animals; we are not savages to get this kind of treatment."
Darwin Conourquie
I was just standing on George Street, because I was watching the mass camp with the carnival thing, then as the mass camp was done, I just stood across the street and some guys were socializing across the other side. Then when I looked three big police truck came around the area full speed, with men with mask on and everything, and then they just tell everyone on the block to get down and they started to stomp up people and fire shots and everything. Then they came and told me to get down and they stomp me in my back and the took everyone and throw them in the back of the truck, one on top of the other and they pepper spayed us and took us to the station and started to beat us all. They told us to get down on the ground and sit down and put our hands behind our head, so I explain to one of them with the mask, that I am an employee of channel 7, and the man said, 'he doesn't give a F....' with the bad word and he took the gun and hit me in my head with the gun and burst my head."
Zane Galvez
"I wasn't the only one in need of medical treatment; they had guys that were with worse severe injuries than me. Some of them had burst in their heads where blood was gushing out. I mean, blood was poring over their face, their entire shirt fill with blood. At first they were refusing to really comply with us. I had to take out, I had almost a thousand dollars on me Mr. Jules and I had to take that out and tell them listen 'I would pay you all of this right now, just to make me go to the hospital and get my medical treatment'. That's my god given rights I am a human being, I don't know what to say about that."
We tried reaching the police for comment but got no response despite our attempts to speak with the department press officer, the ministry press officer and the head of the Gang Suppression unit. We did reach the minister who told us to speak with the ministry spokesperson - who, again, we could not reach.
