On Monday, Police Commissioner Chester Williams publicly acknowledged that his officers mishandled the detention of 60 year-old Nestor Vasquez Jr., which ended with him being killed by a violent, mentally ill man who was also in police custody. And tonight, police are being accused of improper behavior once again.
Their accuser this time is 31 year-old Michael Hulse, an auto mechanic who lives in the Buttonwood Bay area of Belize City. He's claiming that early on Tuesday morning, officers from the GSU stormed into his house, and put a beatdown on him. They were there to search for illegal firearms and drugs, and they say that they found 5.6 grams of cocaine inside his house. That's a drug trafficking charge that he is refuting, and his attorney says he is claiming innocence, and that the drugs were planted on him.
That one will be resolved by the Magistrate's Court, but his attorney, Audrey Matura, says that their bigger concern right now, is the injuries he suffered, allegedly at the hands of police. He was supposed to be arraigned today, but due to an error on the charge sheet they prepared for him, Senior Magistrate Aretha Ford postponed it. At Matura's request, he was released into her custody, and as you can see here, he walked gingerly out of court, wincing from each step, and he had to be assisted by his family members.
His attorney granted us an interview this evening discussing the incident, as reported from his perspective. Here's what she told us:
Audrey Matura, Attorney
"And what happened on the 11th in the morning, about 5 GSU went to his house, about 5 officers and unfortunately they knocked down his door, they conducted a search, but before they did any search they gave him some kind of licks and beating. If you saw him, he was not able to walk. He had to spend a night in the hospital. He has damages to neck and bruises to his back and legs and good thing no x-rays shows that he has any kind of bone fracture or anything. So they not only broke down his door and got him and beat him - they said to him that he wanted to make things easier had to give them the password to his phone and as you know your phone is your privacy and it so happens on his phone he had very compromising pictures of his girlfriend. I mean, boyfriend/girlfriend in this modern age do those things. They police went through all of that. I had to complain to the Commissioner of Police about that matter and I know yesterday they gave back the cell phone to the family, by then they had deleted certain things, but without saying much I know there are ways to track and prove all of that. But after 48 hours the police jad to have charge him. They gave him a charge sheet yesterday, but that charge sheet was wrong, it was erroneous. I went to the police station this morning and I pointed out to them the problem with the charge sheet. I called the head of prosecution. I told them about it, I told the commissioner of police - he assured me by 12pm they would have it corrected. When I came back to the magistrate court today, the same error. There is a defect in the charge sheet. A person that is being charged needs to know the exact charges and so they had to release him. The officer that was the prosecutor did the right thing, he called his superiors and they said that the 48 hour is up and you don't have a proper charge and you have to release him. I told them I'll bring him back when you all have your charge sheet in order. That's one thing, the charge sheet. The other thing is how do you treat people when you arrest them? The police has already has the power and the authority, they don't have to beat you to take you in."
He is expected to be arraigned on that drug trafficking charge tomorrow, after police rectify the error on his charge sheet.
Reliable Sources tell us that Tuesday's search of Hulse's house was done by a joint-law enforcement team which consisted of GSU officers, the Special Branch, and other entities from the police department.
When we contacted the Officer commanding the Gang Suppression Unit this evening, he told us that he knows that his officers did bring criminal charges against Hulse. When we asked about the police brutality allegation against his officers, the OC told us that our phone call to him was the first he had heard of Hulse's claim.
We intend to follow up on this case tomorrow.
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