SOCU to charge Sgt. who resist pressure from seniors to change statement in Brutus probe
The Special Organised Crime Unit will institute charges against one of two female police sergeants who have stood their ground by refusing pressure from senior police officers to change their initial statements given to SOCU regarding the probe into Assistant Commissioner of Police Calvin Brutus.
This publication has been informed by sources within SOCU that the female police sergeant is likely to be charged with conspiracy and obstructing an investigation when she visits SOCU today. In their initial statements to SOCU, there was nothing that implicated the Assistant Commissioner of Police in wrongdoing.
The two women have been suffering victimization from senior police officers within the organization since refusing to change their statements. One was denied leave to undergo a critical ophthalmology surgery while the other was detained by SOCU for hours while her young son remained in a school compound waiting to be picked up after classes. They were both then transferred out of the unit where they worked without the necessary hand-over-take-over system and were detailed to perform duties on the road, creating a situation for their records to be left unattended and exposed to the possibility of being tampered with.
Both women along with their supervisor Lingard Walcott who heads the Police Quartermaster Store stated in their initial statements that all goods that the police paid for, were supplied by the companies who were paid. Lingard was then summoned to a meeting where he was reportedly pressured into changing his statement, he subsequently did and then called the two female ranks to his office and informed them that instructions were that they too needed to change theirs.
The head of the Quartermaster Store Lingard Walcott buckled under pressure and changed his statement while the two junior ranks refused to change theirs.
However, after changing his initial statement, Walcott in his new statement explained that the companies that were paid for goods never supplied those to the Guyana Police Force. Weeks after, evidence surfaced that Walcott himself signed for the goods which he claimed were not supplied to the police force. He was immediately summoned to SOCU for a private meeting after hours on the day the story broke.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Calvin Brutus has been charged with several offenses after the anti-money laundering Act. He, his wife, driver, and businessman were all placed before the courts last month for a multiplicity of offenses leveled against them and Brutus alone was slapped with more than 200 charges.
