TAXI HORROR

What was supposed to be a 15-minute drive to her workplace aboard an illegal taxi turned into a 30-minute horror story for an unsuspecting female security guard caught in a reckless high-speed chase involving the police in the Corporate Area yesterday.

The 28-year-old woman, who The Gleaner will identify only as Justine Brown, left home with the intention of getting to her work post in downtown Kingston. However, she and another female passenger would end up having to jump from the moving vehicle.

“I’m feeling some pain in my back and left shoulder… ,” Brown told The Gleaner. “Yes, I jumped [from the car]. I was heading to work and I almost reach Mother’s [on King Street], so I said to the driver ‘I am coming off’ and he said ‘Ok’.”

What happened next, Justine said, left her scared for her life.

“All of a sudden him a wind up the four windows with me and another female in there. I was at the back and she was at the front. But I wasn’t paying too much mind because we know when dem near reach downtown and the place a go hot and dem a go park to get passengers, dem turn up the AC,” Brown said.

She said two policemen approached the vehicle along with a service vehicle and other police personnel aboard.

“I hear the driver say ‘How the F dem realise say a mi’. Then the police a tell the man to come out of the vehicle and the man a say him nah come out and the police a beat the vehicle and a say ‘Open up the vehicle’,” Brown recalled.

Both passengers, The Gleaner understands, started to plead with the driver to let them out and he reportedly responded with a sharp ‘No’.

“Him reverse and lick up in another man vehicle. Then him a try and try escape out of the traffic. Him escape and a drive mad. Him meet in a accident with another vehicle. Instead him stop and we a bawl fi him let we out and gwan, him still continue the journey,” Brown said.

Already heading in the opposite direction, Brown said the other passenger jumped out near the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).

“I was at the back, so I made my way to the front because is the door that he had to open it… . ‘Mi dead now’. That a the first thing come to mind because, you see how him a drive, the man a come pon one way, him a tek sidewalk, him a lick up inna people car and him nah stop and him tell mi in deh say him nah stop. Him tell mi to mi face,” Brown said, indicating that her pleas fell on deaf ears.

She told The Gleaner that, on reaching Molynes Road in the vicinity of Tarrant Drive, she made up her mind to jump, now or never.

“Mi see him tek one sidewalk and that is how mi jump out. You see the jump weh mi jump out some people come and tek mi up and brush mi off and give mi some water and give mi a chair to sit down,” Brown said, adding that she notified her employers immediately.

She said she also thought the police were going to fire on the vehicle but realised that they were just pursuing and did not discharge their weapons.

“Maybe they said, ‘No man, the female dem inna the vehicle, we nah go do that’. But when mi see him a lick up inna the vehicle dem and nuh care, just taking the one way, mi say, ‘Yes, fada, mi dead now because him nuh care’, and when him a lick up inna the vehicle and mi a beg him fi stop him tell mi straight say him nah stop. So, a nuh weh mi see a happen pon di media (social media), a weh mi see a happen inna mi face,” Brown said.

She was taken to the Medical Associates health centre where checks were conducted and an X-ray showed no internal injuries.

“The doctors say I am shaken up, that’s why I am in so much pain,” Brown said.

 

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On Monday, a similar incident occurred in Stony Hill Square about 11:15 a.m.

Passengers were held against their will while another illegal taxi driver attempted to outrun a group of police and Transport Authority (TA) inspectors.

He was however cut off by a truck and the authorities in tow swooped down, forcefully removing him from behind the steering wheel.

A TA inspector, in full view of bystanders, allegedly used a sharp instrument to slash the tyres on the disabled Toyota Probox.

A video that has since gone viral shows police personnel restraining the driver with a boot to the neck as he was on the ground.

The rogue driver, bleeding from his head, was taken into custody and placed in a police service vehicle.

The actions of the police and TA personnel were met with anger from residents and other taxi operators who blocked the roadway of the busy township.

A female passenger in that vehicle told The Gleaner she was angry that the driver had put her and her family through such an ordeal.

“Dem a run taxi. Passenger nuh know nothing. Passengers a go in and when trouble now, dem waan keep you with them. When dem hold him, him a go say mi sell him out and mi a say all mi tell you fi do a let out mi and mi pickney,” the passenger told The Gleaner.

She said she had gone through a similar ordeal in 2008 on a public passenger bus and has been left to suffer the pain that still lingers to date.

“In 2008, down Long Lane, mi have a foot a give mi problem and mi nuh get nothing out of it. Anytime mi inna dem something here mi panic… him a tell mi believe inna him and him door can’t open,” the passenger said, indicating that she begged the driver to free her on Monday.

The passenger was however concerned about the treatment meted out to the driver.

“Like how dem jam him and tek him out, mi nuh think it right for them to slash him tyre and buss up him face. That part of it how it go, dem coulda just handcuff him and carry him go station,” the passenger said.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Gary McKenzie, head of the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB), told The Gleaner that the Jamaica Constabulary Force has a policy known as the pursuit policy.

“As a matter of policy, we do not engage in chasing, we engage in pursuit and pursuit has several tenets,” McKenzie said on Tuesday.

He told The Gleaner that one element of the policy requires that, if someone does something, the police have a responsibility to treat with the matter.

“If it is a serious matter, where the police believe that pursuit is necessary, then one important part of it is communication for contingency. The police will communicate to the Police Emergency Communication Centre and then other units will be informed,” McKenzie said.

“Whilst the vehicle will follow in the direction where the vehicle that they wish to pursue is going, there are other points that we commonly call cut-off points that will be in place for the police to interdict.”

McKenzie said he could not provide details on either Monday’s or Tuesday’s incidents.

“As I said before, that is the guide as it relates to pursuit,” he added, noting that he could not say whether the driver in the latest incident was charged.

Ralston Smith, managing director of the TA, after being told that The Gleaner was seeking comment on the TA inspector’s slashing of a tyre in the Monday incident and the agency’s policy for dealing with illegal taxis, said he was unable to make time to speak with the newspaper.

A member of the management team at the TA however said the agency was taking a soft approach when dealing with illegal taxi operators and, on seeing the viral video, expressed a view that the police should not have assaulted the driver.

“We don’t run down people, we are using a softer approach. We don’t run them down or slash their tyres,” said the TA official, who wished not to be identified, while advising The Gleaner to have dialogue with the authority’s managing director on such a ticklish situation.

 

andre.williams@gleanerjm.com