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Man Falsely Accused of Stealing Cop's Gun
posted (February 23, 2021)
Tonight, a family from the Mahogany Heights Community on the George Price Highway is speaking out against what they say is an abuse of police authority, with few elements of brutality sprinkled in.

Marlon Dunn is complaining that the cops made his life very difficult last week, all because they wrongly suspected that he stole a police officer's gun while they were both commuting on a bus. Dunn says he returned from Belize City to Mahogany Heights on the bus with his common-wife last Monday. But shortly after they got home, a team of police officers pulled up, and began interrogating him about a gun that he knew nothing about. He later found out after his painful encounter with police that an officer pointed him out as a suspect who may have stolen his gun while they were on the bus. He asserts that he didn't take the gun, and moreover, he thinks that the officer was on a different bus when he lost his firearm. Dunn stopped by our office yesterday to told about the ordeal that he and his family went through, all because of this wrongful accusation:

Marlon Dunn, Alleges Police Brutality
"We got home, changed our clothes. I went across to my neighbor's house. My wife [was] still at home. About 5 minutes in between, I saw my little 10-year-old son who came running to me and said, 'Dad, the police is at our house.' So, I ran back over to my house to see what was happening at my house. When I got there, I met a sergeant in full uniform and a couple of other officers. I went inside and I asked, 'Officers, what is the problem?' The officer said, 'Young man, what is your name?' I said, 'My name is Marlon.' He just looked at me and said, 'Marlon, where is the gun?' I lifted up my hand and said, 'Sarge, I don't know anything about any gun. We don't have any guns. I didn't take any gun from anybody.' He told me that his firearm went missing off the bus. I told him, 'Well, officer, we don't have anything to with that. My wife is my witness, and we have nothing to do with that.' He said that he was gonna search my house, I said go right ahead."

"They did what they had to do, and they left. Wednesday night now, my entire family and I were watching the news. We heard knocking on the door. I answered, and they said, 'Police."

"As I told the man that they call me "Pop Corn", he requested the officer from Mahogany to put me in handcuffs. I asked him, 'Officer, why are you arresting me?' He said, 'I'll tell you about it in a few."

"He said, 'Mr. Marlon, where is the gun?' So, I said, "Officer, you all again with this gun thing? I don't know about any gun. They said, 'We'll conduct a search.' I said, 'No problem.'"

"This man turned over my sofa, rip open my sofa looking for a gun and can't find it. He went to my next chair, did the same thing, couldn't find anything. He turned around and in my wall. I have a little hole. The man went and rip out the hole, looked inside, and couldn't find a gun."

"I stepped outside off my step, the man kicked me behind my leg. When I fell the corporal caught me. When they caught me, he said, nothing, I said, 'Officer, why are you kicking me for? I am not doing anything to any of you. All I am doing is complying. When he finished, he grabbed me on my shoulder and squeezed, all of his hand's strength. I had to go down. He was still asking me about the gun. I told him, Officer, I am swearing on my mother's grave, I don't know anything about any gun. I don't have a gun. Why are you all harassing me about something I don't have. They placed me in their truck, and they told me that they would detain me and my wife. Now, my wife and I, you will detain us, and we have 4 young children at home? They didn't even give us any chance to find someone to look after our children. We had to leave our children at home by themselves, in the house without anything to eat."

"We had some good neighbors around us, who looked after them for us. But imagine police took you and your wife, for something you didn't do, and you have to leave your kids at home all by themselves, with nobody to look after them, and they have to sleep there all by themselves."

"Nobody asked us about anything. They left us there, the entire day Thursday, until 4 o'clock the evening, when they came back, and told us, 'We'll take you to your house one more time. We're just waiting to get transportation, and we'll do one more search. They took us out at 4 o'clock, they took us back home to our house."

"Everywhere they searched. When they were done, they found nothing. The officers were nice enough to tell us, 'You know what? Mr. Dunn and Miss Joseph, we apologize for what we put you through. We apologize for any inconvenience caused to you, and that they got the wrong information about us."

Dunn and his family think that the police owe them for damage to property due to the 3 searches in which his sofa set and his wall were destroyed. He says that during these interrogations, one of the officers treated him to several kicks in the midsection, which is still painful when he is trying to sleep. He left our office yesterday with the intention of making a formal complaint to the professional standards branch.

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