Delroy Scarlett and his fiancee Karen Colley showing the injuries he sustained.

WESTERN BUREAU:

A Falmouth resident is crying foul one week after he claimed he was attacked and beaten by members of the Transport Authority.

Delroy Scarlett came to THE STAR's office on Tuesday to display the injuries he sustained on February 2, the day he said the incident took place. He said the incident began at 9:15 a.m., when he and his fiancé dropped her daughter off at the William Knibb Memorial High School.

"When I reached at the school, I saw a bus just come around and say mi running taxi, and mi say, 'this car not running taxi,' and from there, they start to fight me and take away my vehicle. I said, 'you can't get my vehicle like that, I'm not running taxi'," Scarlett recounted.

Karen Colley, Scarlett's fiancé, who was driving the car at the time, remembered that she had seen a white bus with the right-hand indicator flashing, and she heard someone shouting to her to stop.

"I heard when somebody said 'pull over,' but I wasn't thinking it was police or anybody because I didn't pass any police or anybody there. I continued driving, when I reached by the school gate, I stopped and came out the car to open the door to let my daughter out because the car door wasn't working properly," Colley said.

"By the time I got to open the door, I saw when a white bus just came down behind and people running out in grey, white and blue; when I realised, it was Transport (Authority) people and some special (constables). And everybody talking at the same time, 'gimme your documents, gimme your papers because you running taxi!' And I said 'no, just calm down, just take it easy and calm down.'"

Scarlett noted that he resisted when the individuals attempted to confiscate his car, and that was when things took a turn for the worse.

"Dem start to thump me up, ... pulled me out the car by my waist, back-way, and said 'this car going to pound'," he remembered. "I said 'this car not going to pound, because mi not running taxi.' And the police sergeant pull me and carry me round the front and chuck me down on the bonnet, and thump me in my face."

Scarlett added that he made the suggestion to go to the Falmouth Police Station to talk the matter over, but the efforts to take his car away persisted.

"They try to take away the vehicle, they drop down the wrecker boom in front of the car and said they gonna carry it to the pound. And mi say, 'This car not going to pound; mek we go to the Falmouth police station and thrash it out'," he told THE WEEKEND STAR.

"And from there, they just drop it down and mi throw away the chain. Four times mi throw away the chain, and they haul down the wrecker on mi foot. From mi stand up in front the car and they start to haul down the wrecker on me, say them want to take it away, and mi say no, mek wi go to the Falmouth police station and thrash it out."

Colley added that at one point, a police officer was about to hit Scarlett with a baton, but both she and her daughter had to beg him not to.

"I hang on to his arm and I said 'no, don't kill him,' and my daughter run down and hug up the policeman and start to cry and say, 'Do mi a beg yu, don't kill him, because mi father gone lef mi, and ah mi stepfather haffi a look after me'," said Colley.

Among the injuries Scarlett sustained in the struggle were a broken arm and nose. He eventually went to the Falmouth Police Station where he filed a report and also received a letter to go to the Falmouth Hospital.

"We have to try and do something, because we cannot take it just like that. We went to the Police Public Complaints Department," Colley noted, adding that legal recourse may be an option.

When contacted, Deputy Super-intendent Errol Thompson of the Jamaica Constabulary Force's Trelawny Division confirmed that a report had indeed been made on the incident.

The police allege that he (Scarlett) was roboting; he was operating contrary to the terms of his license. He said he tried not to allow them to take his vehicle, and during that confrontation, it sounded as if it became physical," said Dept. Supt. Thompson.

"He came out with a broken nose and broken left arm. The matter was reported and it is being investigated by the police."