Halfway Tree residents claim St. Paulians filled Town Hall Meeting to give wrong impression
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - PANDEMONIUM broke out at Halfway Tree Community centre last night (Oct. 30) when a police officer physically abused a young man who was in attendance of the Government Town Hall Meeting.
This incident occurred nearing the end of the meeting while Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas was in the process of answering the final question of the night.
A man, who calls himself ‘Spliffy’, was one of the attendees who stood on the outside and continuously shouted "liar" through the louvered windows while the Prime Minister was responding to the final question.
Two men in blue police uniforms stood a short distance away but did nothing to stop the young man from disturbing the session.
Instead, they walked up to the corridor where a large crowd had gathered to listen to the Prime Minister's response, stood for a few seconds before returning to their previous position.
A few seconds after, the awful smell that had been plaguing the meeting since it started arose again and persons from the crowd immediately began searching the area near the corridor where the police officers had stood for a while.
They were heard saying, "They drop something here. They put a stink bomb here, that's why they come stand up here."
Seconds later, another police officer in uniform walked up to Spliffy, who was still screaming "liar" through the window, and asked him to calm down as he was disturbing the meeting, to which the young man replied, "Officer no touch me, I gon move."
Spliffy was then heard saying that PM Douglas did not say he was disturbing the meeting and he did not see why the officer had to rebuke him.
At that point, the officer shoved the young man onto the wall, then to the ground and proceeded to beat him.
He was joined by two other officers who were a short distance away, while the crowd on the outside shouted for them to stop and questioned the reason for them treating the young man the way they did.
The fracas continued to the police vehicle where Spliffy was apprehended and put to sit within, but it is unknown whether or not he was arrested or allowed to leave following the end of the meeting.
Soon after another fight broke out between two individuals but it quickly ended with the intervention of members of the law enforcement body.
During the meeting, the Halfway Tree residents who were on the outside were angered about not being able to have a seat in the building.
They claimed that the government had brought residents from St. Paul’s Village to the meeting to support Dr. Douglas and to fill the seats within the small community centre, with the aim of Half Way Tree’s residents having to remain outside.
One resident said: "He come bring he entourage from St. Paul’s like he do over Lodge. They come over here to take up space in a meeting that was supposed to be for the people who live here, but that ain gon stop us, we gon jam them still."
The outraged residents also claimed that this was done so that it would appear as though the Halfway Tree residents are in agreement with the land-for-debt swap, which was far from the truth.
"They come cheer him on to give the impression that we like what he's doing, but they ain fooling nobody. Everybody knows the sensible people of St. Kitts ain like what he doing and we ain gon sit back and watch him give away we lands," another resident said.
A female resident voiced her displeasure, noting that PM Douglas, along with the other speakers, spoke at length about the issue at hand, which she claimed was unnecessary, because it was information that they had heard on more than one occasion.
She opined that it was a plot to take up as much time as possible so that less questions could be asked.
The residents also voiced their concerns about the strange scent that kept surfacing anywhere a large crowd would have gathered outside of the building.
They were heard making accusations that the police officers, who were there in numbers, were dropping stink bombs "so that we could either not get a chance to ask our questions or so that we would get fed-up of the smell and leave. But we ain going nowhere...they ain gon run us".
As the meeting ended and the Prime Minister left the building surrounded by bodyguards, some of the residents followed him shouting their displeasure with the way the meeting was conducted, including the fact that an attendee was shoved out of the building for objecting to what he was saying, while his supporters were able to cheer without being so much as being scolded for their disruption.
