ComPol Responds to Police Abuse Claims in San Pedro

Commissioner of Police Chester Williams has addressed the allegations of police abuse in San Pedro. On Thursday, we reported on Alex Wade, a San Pedro resident who claims that after being detained for assault, he was denied his right to make a phone call and was beaten by several officers in his cell, resulting in a fractured elbow. Commissioner Williams says that’s only part of the story but assures that the incident has been reported to the Professional Standards Branch for a thorough investigation.

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Again  it has a lot to do with people being honest about what they said to the media. I spoke to the O.C., or the Divisional Commander of the Coastal Area, Mr. Cowo, this morning on that issue. And my briefing from Mr. Cowo is that these individuals, I think there were three of them detained in a cell with another person having detained them in the cell with the other person, they found out that the other person had some mental disability. Our policy is that once you have a person who is mentally challenged, that person must be detained separately from other prisoners. So the police officers went to the cell block to remove those individuals who were not classified as mentally challenged, out of the cell where this mentally challenged person was. And when the officers went to do that, these three individuals attacked the police officers.  The officers received varying degrees of injuries including when transporting them to the hospital. One of them stamped the police out of the vehicle, almost killing him. And the police have since charged those individuals for the injuries they had caused to the police officers. So, we need to be honest and we have to understand that police officers are human beings. And when police are doing their job, we must always ensure we work with them or cooperate with them. Even if you feel like the police officer is wrong, you have a responsibility to cooperate. And after you have done so, you can always make a complaint if you believe the police have wronged you. So again, I personally do not see anything wrong that the police officers did. Nonetheless, I’ve tasked professional standard branch to go out and look at the situation. We may have bit of footages that will be able to help the police investigation.”