Last week we told you about the disturbing case of 14-year-old Khadijah Cruz, the high school student whose cheek was sliced open by an unknown attacker. It happened as shoe got off the bus near Gwen Liz High School and the Hattieville teen had to get 14 stitches to close the wound.
Her family appeared on 7News twice last week to say that police were not taking the investigation seriously - and that their foot dragging had resulted din the loss of critical surveillance camera evidence - because it was erased after 3 days.
Today the Commissioner said he agrees with the family - but added that there was the complication of a mentally ill suspect:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I do accept his criticisms; I think it's a valid one and any parent in his shoe would do the same. At first glance the police officers certainly did not give the report the level of attention it needed. I accept that. A complaint was made to me in regards to it and immediately I got to Mr. Romero and he rectified the issue. But again, it has a lot to do with ignorance on the part of the officers. Sometimes we dont really know procedures, even though a crime may be committed by a person who is deemed to be mentally challenge, it is not for us the police to decide that we are not going to charge that person. What we normally do is that the person is charged and then the court has its own way of determining whether or not the person is fit to stand trial, but sometimes police have this mindset that once it's a person who is mentally challenge that we can't charge the person. That is not what the law is and it's a matter of making sure that we sensitize or educate our officers more where mentally or suspected mentally challenge persons are concerned and again, it may also have to do with the phobia that police officers have in dealing with mental patients. We have seen a number of officers getting into trouble for dealing with mental patients, so while I could understand the officer's viewpoint, I cannot accept the fact that they did not do what ought to have been done in the first instance."
Latest reports to our newsroom say that suspect is not yet in custody.
