Mark Bas­sant

A man who yes­ter­day post­ed a so­cial me­dia video of an ap­par­ent threat to po­lice of­fi­cers was lat­er forced to apol­o­gise and then hauled to the po­lice sta­tion for an out­stand­ing war­rant.

Even as protests in Port-of-Spain con­tin­ued for a sec­ond day yes­ter­day, the man ap­peared in a so­cial me­dia video say­ing, “Right now any­thing that name po­lice not safe. From you is ah po­lice best you give up your wuk (sic) one time. Car­ry in your badge in the sta­tion one time and sign up your pa­per and let the pub­lic know that you doh (sic) want no part of that wuk (sic) again. By the time any­thing name po­lice not safe. Say no more.”

But a few hours lat­er the same man was seen in an­oth­er video, this time it ap­pears he was hand­cuffed and be­ing ques­tioned by po­lice of­fi­cers for the state­ment he had made ear­li­er.

He told the of­fi­cers, “This morn­ing I was drink­ing a lit­tle pun­cheon and thing, I was watch­ing the scene what fulling up in town nah boi. So peo­ple dead and thing. I make a lil (sic) bad state­ment and all my cousins and fam­i­ly call me and re­al bouff meh. That is what I sit down there study­ing.”

One po­lice of­fi­cer in­ter­ject­ed in the video, say­ing, “So you apol­o­gise to all the of­fi­cers?

The man re­marked, “I must apol­o­gise be­cause all yuh do­ing all yuh wuk (sic) too.”

The of­fi­cer asked, “You sure about that?

The man re­spond­ed, “I sure about that.”

An­oth­er po­lice of­fi­cer then asked, “So what was the rea­son for mak­ing that video?

The man, who bowed his head from time to time, said, “As I tell you we were watch­ing the thing from yes­ter­day. I was watch­ing the thing and fol­low­ing up and say OK, peo­ple dead and thing and it can of hurt me hon­est­ly and how I was drink­ing and thing I make a lil (sic) video. I did not re­al­ly mean noth­ing.”

The of­fi­cer fur­ther asked, “And you de­cide to send a warn­ing to the po­lice right?”

The man said, “No me eh (sic) send no threat you know, if they take it that way. I did not re­al­ly mean no threat you know.”

The man was then asked his name and he re­spond­ed and lat­er told the po­lice he sings for a liv­ing.

The of­fi­cers then told him there was a war­rant for him and he re­spond­ed, “You can car­ry me, of­fi­cer, I have no prob­lem.”