The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A MAN from Eleuthera is unable to walk and has had surgery on his right leg after police officers allegedly slammed him to the ground at the Harbour Island Police Station in October.

Demetrius Pyfrom, 21, said he has not been charged with a crime and is calling the incident an act of police brutality.

His childhood friend, 25-year-old Alonzo Pinder, said he was finishing up a day’s work on October 27 when six of his co-workers screamed his name to alert him to what was happening on the opposite side of the road at the Harbour Island Police Station.

“My team was calling my name to let me be aware of what was going on,” he said. “When I ran out, I heard it clearly, (Demetrius) was screaming my name.”

Mr Pinder said there was much commotion inside the station and the sounds troubled him.

“If you heard it, you would’ve felt so bad,” he said. “It sounded like someone was getting tortured, like you about to get tied up and someone about to get a machine to cut your hand off.”

Mr Pinder said he tried to enter the building, but all the doors were locked.

Mr Pyfrom, meanwhile, said police arrested him because of stolen golf cart batteries.

“The police station itself has surveillance cameras on the outside and parts of the interior that would have recorded (what happened) as I entered the station,” he said in a statement sent to The Tribune. “But I was moved from that room to the courtroom where there weren’t any cameras.”

Mr Pyfrom said after asking him for stolen batteries, police became angry and asked him to lie on the floor.

He said: “I asked why lay on the ground, why can’t I just sit in a chair if I’m being interviewed? There were about 12 chairs in the room at the time.

“That is when (an officer) began punching me in the stomach and slapping me to the face and pushed me into the main courtroom door causing the door to open and the persons that were on the outside (with Mr Pinder) became aware of what was happening to me and began to make noise about how I was being treated and abused,” he alleged.

Mr Pyfrom said an officer closed the door and accused him of trying to leave the police station.

“I was then pushed onto a table,” he said. “(An officer) then grabbed me by the hands as (another officer) grabbed both my legs. It was then when I was placed in the air and slammed to the floor on my right side where I felt a severe pain to my right hip and leg. I never got back up again after the impact of being slammed to the ground. I cried out in pain for a doctor and both officers began to laugh, taking it for a joke.

“The first person to make it to the station was my mother who was in tears after seeing me on the floor and hearing what had happened to me.”

Mr Pyfrom said officers eventually contacted a nurse. The nurse, he said, requested he be taken to Spanish Wells for an X-ray.

He said after the X-ray was done, a female doctor at the Spanish Wells clinic told him his pelvic bone and hip bone appeared to be dislocated and broken.

He said he was emergency airlifted by Flamingo Air to New Providence and rushed to the Princess Margaret Hospital.

“The next day,” he said, “a CT scan and other X-rays were done to assess my injuries. After receiving the results, the doctor asked me if I was in a motorcycle accident, stating that I had to take a great amount of force to break and dislocate my bones in such a way. I also had to undergo surgery on my right leg to put my leg back in place. I spent a week in Accident and Emergency and was later moved to male surgical.”

Mr Pyfrom said he was discharged from the Princess Margaret Hospital on November 13 and was given a knee immobiliser. He said he began therapy on November 19.

“Almost two months later,” he said, “a statement was never taken by the arresting officers, nor have I been told that any charges are being brought against me.”

Mr Pyfrom said he was released from prison last year after being sentenced to eight months for a housebreaking incident. His friend, Mr Pinder, said he is no stranger to run-ins with the law, but insisted he would do nothing to warrant a brutal attack.

Mr Pyfrom has hired a lawyer to represent him. His lawyer said yesterday that he is analysing his client’s medical records as he prepares to build a case.

When contacted for comment, Assistant Commissioner of Police Audley Peters said the matter should be in the “purview of the police complaints” unit.