Ak­ile Si­mon

Of­fi­cers of the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion have come un­der fire by a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer af­ter a 46-year-old men­tal­ly un­sta­ble man was knocked down and killed along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route yes­ter­day morn­ing at 5.10 am.

An­tho­ny Alexan­der, of Sev­enth Street, Barataria, was killed in­stant­ly af­ter he was struck by a Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vices Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) bus. The dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle told po­lice he was pro­ceed­ing east along the bus route, near the Sixth Av­enue traf­fic lights, in Barataria, when the vic­tim re­port­ed­ly jumped in the path­way of the bus. Alexan­der, an out-pa­tient of the St Ann's Men­tal Hos­pi­tal, was thrown sev­er­al feet along the road­way and died at the scene. There were no pas­sen­gers in the ve­hi­cle at the time of the in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, a mag­is­trate has crit­i­cised the po­lice for not pro­vid­ing ad­e­quate pro­tec­tion to the vic­tim.

The woman, who did not wish to be iden­ti­fied, said she was pro­ceed­ing west along the bus route when the vic­tim jumped in front of her ve­hi­cle. "I al­most col­lid­ed with a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle which was head­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion, af­ter I at­tempt­ed to avoid hit­ting him (Alexan­der)," she said. She said she told one of her rel­a­tives in the ve­hi­cle to call the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion and re­port what had hap­pened. The mag­is­trate said: "I think the po­lice failed him. They did not ex­e­cute their job as one would ex­pect them to and I am deeply sad­dened to know that he died, since based on all ap­pear­ances, the po­lice did noth­ing to save him from him­self." Of­fi­cers at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion con­firmed they re­ceived sev­er­al re­ports Alexan­der had thrown him­self in the path­way of on­com­ing ve­hi­cles. The ju­di­cial of­fi­cer said there were op­tions avail­able to the of­fi­cers when deal­ing with men­tal­ly-ill per­sons.

She said the vic­tim could have been ar­rest­ed and charged with at­tempt­ing to com­mit sui­cide or placed in the care of the St Ann's Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Head of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Theophillus Cum­mings, and Ag Supt Stephen Ram­sub­hag said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be im­me­di­ate­ly launched to de­ter­mine if there was neg­li­gence on the part of any of the of­fi­cers. "We will in­ves­ti­gate the al­le­ga­tions and once there is suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence which in­di­cates there was neg­li­gence, the of­fi­cers who were on du­ty when the re­port was made will be dealt with," Ram­sub­hag said yes­ter­day. Sgt Lemessy of the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent.