By FARRAH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
fjohnson@tribunemedia.net
AN immigration officer told police they could not lock her up after they tried to detain her for interfering with a lawful arrest, a court heard.
Sharez Wallace was charged with obstruction, disorderly behaviour, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer in October of last year. Her trial began before Magistrate Samuel McKinney yesterday.
When Constable Fredericka Delancy took the stand, she said she and a team of officers were on mobile patrol when they responded to a call for back-up by the police control room.
She said when they arrived at the designated location, she saw two officers in a patrol car surrounded by a “number of persons”. She said when she spoke to one of them, he pointed out Wallace, who, he said, was an immigration officer who was under arrest for obstruction.
The court was told that one of Wallace’s relatives was being arrested and she was trying to intervene.
PC Delancy said when she tried to approach the accused, a group of people initially hindered her, but she was eventually able to get to Wallace. She said when she did, the immigration officer was shouting, throwing her hands up and saying “all kinds of things.”
She said when she pulled Wallace to the side to tell her to calm down, the accused refused to comply and tried to walk away. PC Delancy said when she told Wallace she was under arrest for obstruction, she “resisted violently”.
“She pulled and pushed away and said: ‘I is a immigration officer you can’t lock me up’ but with the assistance of (other officers) I subdued her,” PC Delancy said.
Yesterday, Wallace, who was not represented by an attorney, declined to cross-examine PC Delancy when given an opportunity to do so.
The case continues on September 23.
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