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Crystal Harrison, Star Writer
A 51-year-old American tourist is claiming she was disrespected by a group of policemen who assaulted her while using duct tape to cover their badge numbers last Thursday.
Lileth Washington, who was in Jamaica for the Christmas season, claims that even though she obeyed police commands and gave them a search of her vehicle, "one of the police officers told mi to s...ck my mother, and pointed the gun in my four-year-old grandson's face. I was so upset about the incident that I was having nightmares".
Washington told THE STAR yesterday that after arriving at her gate from a trip to the airport to get some of her luggage, she noticed a group of officers pulled up behind her.
"They didn't end up searching my home I guess when they look and saw who was in the vehicle they didn't bother to search it, but for the entire half an hour the police were on my premises, they tried to bully me and were most disrespectful" she recalled.
Washington said one of the policeman told her, he gets paid to kill people, and threaten to shoot her in her private parts after she told them that they shouldn't speak to her like that. "<span style="font-weight: bold">Every year I come down from the States and keep something in the community for the children and the elderly</span>,
I am a respectable woman and I don't deserve to be treated like a thief or criminal," she said. Washington said it was after reporting the matter to the May Pen police that she found out that the policemen "were sent on an operation in the area, with information that because of the death of an alleged gunman there, other gunmen were preparing themselves to do a gun salute at his funeral service."
When THE STAR made contact with Deputy Superintendent Patrick Murdock from May Pen police he said the incident is under investigation. "The matter is being investigated and I have spoken in length to Miss Washington and told her that I will be investigating the incident but there is no place that is immune to the police," he said
Murdock reasoned that he is not in agreement with the alleged actions of the police but the officers were doing spot checks and searches in that section of Clarendon which is one of the hot spots in the parish.
When asked for a comment on the officers wearing duct tape over their badges, Murdock told THE STAR that "I do not know about that."