Shamar Foster was 19 years old when he was assaulted by police officers at the municipal airstrip back in 2022. The incident was captured on his cellphone camera, which caught one of the cops hitting the phone out of his hand. Foster was a tour guide and full time student but in that airstrip, he was stripped of his constitutional rights. He retained attorney Leslie Mendez and took the matter to court.
Yesterday, the court decided in his favor for two of the three constitutional claims he brought, regarding the unlawful search and the breach of his right to freedom of expression as it relates to recording the incident.
Today Mendez told us that while they are satisfied with the outcome, she fears it will do little in the way of deterring officers from repeating the breach.
Leslie Mendez, Attorney
"On the award for damages, we are satisfied with the award for damages and that's because traditionally really in the Caribbean we don't really see very large awards of damages being given. Sometimes even in cases of death you don't really see these extravagant awards that we might see on tv and all these things.
"So looking at just what the standard has been what other cases um what has been awarded in other cases I have no issue with the 25,000. I think Shamar is satisfied with that."
"Um, also it it wasn't the most egregious act of violence that we have seen and so again we are reasonably I think that is something that we are satisfied with but it's another question as to whether I actually believe it will function as a deterrent against further options or not further options, but against further actions similar actions being taken."
"It is precedence setting at least in the Caribbean, it's the first case that we would have where a court is specifically acknowledging um and recognizing the right to record and also giving some insight as to why that is important."
"What is assumed is that the public authorities will then operationalize that and ensure that that is placed on policy that that is there's some sensitization across the board for police officers to know that that is in fact a right and that you're not allowed to ask anybody to stop recording, that's the assumption. But for instance you say that well this has been acknowledged by the department, um by the minister even I believe um that you have the right to record."
"But when something happens as we have seen many times now we've seen videos in the news where there is an explicit request by a police officer saying stop recording, you need to stop recording and there's no follow -up to that."
"So in theory we do have affirmative statements from the public authorities from the commissioner, from the minister accepting that this is in fact the right and yes you have the right to record, but then there's no follow -up."
"It places people at risk when you don't follow up when you don't follow up with actual policy and more than that disciplinary actions when that right is not respected."
And the final claim that Foster brought before the court was that the process and the proceedings were unfair to him. Mendez explained why their argument was not accepted.
Leslie Mendez, Attorney
"The proceedings before the professional standard branch need to be fair, not only to the officer, but to the citizen that has made the complaint. That is what our argument was. We said, in this case, there's a complaint of police misconduct and police misconduct that is a breach, which is equivalent to a breach of the citizen's constitutional rights."
"Which is, again, we placed a premium on that. It's contained in our supreme law, and so we have a very high interest, a duty, an obligation to ensure that those rights are respected. And so our argument was that in that context, when a member of the public makes a complaint against an officer for abusive conduct that has now breached their constitutional rights, the process that the professional standard branch now adheres to has to respect the right of the citizen to be heard, to be included, to be able to participate, to at least know when the proceedings are starting, know what the outcome of the proceeding is. Before we went to court, we didn't know what the outcome of the proceeding was."
"We had sent several requests for updates, and those were not responded. So the argument that we were trying to make is, even though this is an internal disciplinary process for the police department, because now it's engaging with making determinations and assigning sanctions for breaches of constitutional rights that affect members of the public, then members of the public ought to be included."
"The response to that was that, well, again, it's an internal, contained process, and in terms of fairness, the principal person that might be affected by this process is the officer that is now facing disciplinary proceedings, and so the obligation of fairness lies to him."
"And the court agreed, the court agreed with that argument. I must say we were disappointed."
Mendez says they are considering an appeal on the final claim.
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