Dr. O’Toole blasts Police Force, US Embassy for their handling of the attempt on his life
Dr. Brian O’Tool with holds up his left arm following an operation after he shot
Director of Nations, 65 year old Dr. Brian O’Toole has slammed the Guyana Police Force and the United States Embassy of not taking the attempt on his life earlier this year seriously.
O’Toole in an Interview with BIG Smith News Watch on Friday said the Guyana Police Force and the United States Embassy both reached out to him in delay fashion when they reports in the press were unfavourable to them.
He spoke of the joint press conference he shared with Commissioner of Police Leslie James in April of this year which he said the Top Cop requested after he, James indicated that the force was receiving negative press on the issue. The United States Embassy in Georgetown on the other hand, reached out to Dr. O’Toole following a publication in one of Guyana’s dailies which was critical of both the police foce and the embassy.
Commissioner of Police Leslie James, Crime Chief Michael Kingston and then ‘A’ Division Commander Marlon Chapman after concluding a meeting with the Education Minister in January
I had provided them (police force) with all the information of the child that we expelled, the threats and the clear description of my shooter, a description that I have not changed to this date, Dr. O’Tool related. He said the young man is said to be the son of a senior personnel in the Guyanese society.
Dr. O’Toole explained that he was assured by the Commissioner of Police that, that specific individual, was at the time of the shooting out of the country and he, O’Toole was then provided with a departure slip which the young man reportedly filled out and signed.
O’Toole told BIg Smith News Watch that he questioned the handwriting on the slip and indicated to the police that the child attended his school and that the handwriting on the slip was not his, further the signature was also not that of the young man.
“So then the police commissioner said, I promise you, I will send you the proof from Trinidad, America and Canada that indeed he was out of the country… I never got that, if someone like me can’t get justice, then there is no justice in this country at all” the school director noted.
It was later found that the slip was filled out by the young man’s father and not him as the commisisoner assured O’Toole, O’Toole related. Now, the young man who was expelled for selling drugs in Nations is reportedly continuing his trade.
“We give the police detailed information and now he is selling ecstasy in six other top schools and for anyone to say that there are no drugs in the school system, they are totally naive but because of the clear reach of these people and their influence and connection to people way up in this society there is inaction. Until someone dies, then that is it” O’Toole stated.
The school director said that after he was shot, his son came into the country and accompanied the police back to the house, the police according to what O’Tool was told by his son, reportedly ignored and failed to remove key potential evidence which was left behind by his shooter.
“My son told me while at the crime scene, he pointed the police to two pieces of potential evidence which the police reportedly said; oh na we don’t need that”
Dr. O’Toole described those two pieces of evidence as a slippers which was left on the other side of the fence as well as a piece of zinc which was shaped in the form of a ‘V’ and placed over the barbwire of the fence, allegedly by his shooter to gain access to the premises.
O’Toole told BIG Smith News Watch that he has since met again with the police, this time, acting Crime Chief Michael Kingston who from all indications seems to be keen on ensuring that the matter is addressed with the urgency the case needs.
US EMBASSY ROLE
“The American embassy has behaved atrociously in this matter, the question comes; what influence does Mr. X (Father of the suspect) has on them” Dr. Brian O’Toole told BIG Smith News Watch as he recalled that he was called into the United States Embassy months after his shooting where he met with the Deputy Head of Mission and Head of Security.
According to him, he was told by the Embassy that the incident involving him is a ‘Guyana Police Matter’
“So on one level there is this rather strange inactivity on the part of the American Embassy not to act on incontrovertible evidence that a guy accepts, admitted to them that he posted this post to blow the school up, so if he can wriggle out of that, then that is not the America that I read about and see on television”
Concerns parents and reachers during a meeting following the treats to the school in January
He said he questioned the position of the matter being a Guyana matter only on the grounds that one of the two administrators of the Facebook Page which first started posting the threats to the school lives in Florida, United States. He said that he was then told that the FBI contact the young man and he said that it was a joke.
“In the report the police give us, they said yes they (the FBI) met him and he said it was a joke. Now the consequence of that joke is six operations, a paralyzed hand, multiple medical bills running into hundreds of thousand, security bills and the fear put into hundreds of people not only here but at other schools, if a guy can create such mayhem and then say it’s a joke and that is believe by law enforcement, then it is amazing in these modern days of security” Dr. O’Toole told BIG Smith News Watch.
Doctors operating inside Dr. O’Tools left arm to save it after the bone was shattered from a bullet during an attempt on his life in January, 2019
O’Toole related that the young man in Florida and the one here in Guyana were neighbours and after leaving for the states some ten years ago, the two young men kept in touch. He said they both admitted to being the administrators of the Facebook Page which began posting the threats but when they were pulled in by the Guyanese and US authorities respectively, they blamed each other for making the actual post.
Big Smith News Watch was told that the dance the young man performed after shooting Dr. O’Toole was also posted on the Facebook Page even before the O’Tool made that information available to the local police.
“After I was shot, the fb post posted ain’t it amazing that when the man shot O’Tool he did the fortnight dance, it that amazing” he recalled.
During a meeting with the police and the PTA, when the information was also shared with the police and they were pointed into the direction of five persons who were active users of the game where the dance is performed, a senior police officer reportedly told the PTA representatives that they should not tell them how to do their job. It turned out that the five persons who were identified to the police by thew PTA are all connected to some senior people in the Guyanese society also.
Dr. O’Toole and his wife came to Guyana in 1978 where they have remained and have been contributing to the education sector. Dr. O’Toole is slated to have a press confernece today Saturday to address the matter in more details.
