Police have recorded several seemingly “random” assaults this month, they stated in a Tuesday press release.
Police Commissioner Michael Matthews expressed his disappointment with these apparently indiscriminate attacks on community members, police stated.
“It is never right for one person to inflict injury on another even in the heat of disputes,” he said. “However, to subject another to injury just because they are carrying out their duties —or worse, with no apparent provocation — is uncivilised.”
The assaults include one in which a woman was throwing her garbage out next to Willard Wheatley Primary School in East End when a man she didn’t know exited his jeep and hit her in the face, police stated.
Also, in the first week of January, a bank security officer was assaulted by a customer who had been denied entry for not wearing a mask, police stated.
The next week, a man shouted threats and expletives at a customer outside a bank on DeCastro Street, and then hit the customer with a stone, police stated.
According to police, the bank door was damaged and the victim had to be treated at the hospital. Additionally, Leonard Leando Frett, 61, of Vanterpool Estate, was arrested and charged with wounding in connection with two bar attendants who reported being spat on and stabbed by a customer on separate nights at the same East End bar, police stated.
In connection with another incident in which a man assaulted two police officers after they refused to return his confiscated scooter, Ronald Antoine, 22, of Greenland, was arrested and charged with two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, damaging property, resisting arrest, assault on police, and escaping lawful custody, police said.
Both officers had to be treated at the hospital, police stated.
“The public has a right to expect civility and restraint in our streets and our workplaces,” Mr. Matthews said. “Our community-wide response needs to be a unified condemnation for such acts.”