Nagra Plunkett, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE SISTER of the police corporal who was injured by a colleague in Montego Bay last says she is disappointed at comments made by Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas and has demanded that he desist from downplaying the attack on her brother.
"I didn't like what he said in his speech about the symptoms. I don't see how him can go into the station walking and come out paralysed," Valerie Waite said in an interview with The Gleaner yesterday.
On Sunday, Commissioner Thomas remarked that, based on a conversation he had with Dr. Francis Lindo, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, "the symptoms do not speak to the beating we are now talking about".
He was addressing patrons at the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) annual commemorative and memorial service at the Calvary Baptist Church in Montego Bay.
A probe has indicated that Corporal Grantley Waite was beaten by a police constable at the Mount Salem Police Station barracks where he had gone to get a drink of water.
Superintendent Warren Clarke, commanding officer for St. James Police Division, told The Gleaner on Saturday that the constable was responding to calls for help about midnight last Tuesday from two female cleaners who thought the corporal was an intruder.
Subsequently, an altercation ensued between the constable and the perceived intruder during which the 48-year-old cop reportedly tripped and fell backwards down a five-foot stairway.
However, Cecelia Edwards, Cpl. Waite's girlfriend of four years, told The Gleaner that he did not mention "falling" when she first saw him in the Kingston Public Hospital on November 20, five days after he was feared missing.
"I asked him what happened to him and he said, 'One police beat me'," Ms. Edwards said.
"I ask with what and he said, 'a black baton'," she argued. "When he told me he was very stable."
Cpl. Waite, who is attached to the Half-Way Tree Police Station, underwent surgeries yesterday and Sunday. At the time of the incident, he was staying with his sister (Valerie) in Green Island, Hanover.
