A 59-year-old freelance photographer, who said he was taking pictures of the new US Embassy building in Liguanea, St Andrew for job-related purposes, was arrested and charged by the police with resisting arrest, possession of an offensive weapon and assaulting a police officer, three charges, he claimed, were “ridiculous and unfair”.

Errol Hamilton told the Sunday Observer that he snapped two pictures of the newly-constructed building but that security guards stationed at the embassy and a policewoman who was in their company, confiscated his camera, “manhandled” him and took him to the Matilda’s Corner Police Station where he was arrested and the charges laid against him.

It is a general practice of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, effected on a case-by-case basis, to have local cops boost diplomatic security forces.

The police, however, told a different story to Hamilton’s. According to the cops, Hamilton was seen running from the embassy building in the wee hours of November 17 and was pursued by a team of security guards employed to Florida-based firm Wackenhut, but he managed to elude them.

The police said the description of the man was passed on to another team which, a short while later, intercepted Hamilton “trying to hide behind a tree” on Blue Castle Drive in the Kingston 6 area.

When the sole cop in the group, Woman Constable D Thomas of the Mobile Reserve, attempted to apprehend the suspect, he resisted, but with the help of the security guards he was restrained. A silver flash knife was allegedly taken from him and he was subsequently arrested and charged.

However, Hamilton’s version of the sequence of events varied from that of the cops.

He said he was riding home at about 1:30 on the morning of November 17 when upon reaching the new embassy building, he decided to capture it on film for job-related purposes. After doing so, he said he noticed an SUV trailing him and motioned for it to pass but was surprised when men pulling guns and demanding his camera jumped out of the vehicle which had skidded to a halt in front of him, blocking his way.

“I refused their request,” he said, “and told them they had no legal right. I introduced myself [but] they told me to get off my bike, put my hands over my head and get ready to be searched.”

Hamilton said he was saved by some loud-talking Rastafarians on the other side of the road who engaged the security personnel in a verbal confrontation.

In the heat of the argument, he rode away and headed home but as soon as he got to Blue Castle Drive, the road on which he lives, he said he saw about four other sports utility vehicles headed his way.

“I rode off and when I pulled up to my road, some other jeeps drove me down and came into the yard. The men came out, again with guns and with [discriminatory] remarks.”

According to the photographer, the men who alighted from the vehicles were wearing uniforms affixed with emblems of the American flag. At this point, he reportedly heard a female voice and the woman identified herself as a cop, but he said he couldn’t see her face.

“I counted 12 of them when I got to the police station [and] it was about four jeeps of them. About six of them manhandled me, thoroughly frisked me and bundled me up and put me in the jeep,” Hamilton complained.

He related what he went through prior to being placed in the police vehicle: “This is what they did: they handcuffed me and pushed me down on the ground, put my face in the ground. Both my legs and hands were handcuffed. I didn’t have any weapon; I didn’t try to resist them. This was all done in the precincts of my yard, my home [which] I’m sure I should feel secure in. I felt threatened. I felt that I could have been killed in any situation right there.”

Hamilton said members of his family, who had come out of the house and witnessed the incident, asked the diplomatic security team to desist, but to no avail.

Hamilton said that upon the recommendation of the woman constable, he was taken to the Matilda’s Corner Police Station where “they again searched me, removed my camera, my film and the police woman instructed the officers at the police station…. to arrest me for resisting arrest, having an offensive weapon and assaulting her, the policewoman”.

Hamilton said the only thing he was carrying resembling a weapon was a miniature utility tool complete with a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, a file and other related tools he keeps for emergency repairs to his bicycle.

He was released on a $15,000 bond but when he faced Judge Judith Pusey in the Half-Way-Tree RM court on November 24, the matter was thrown out on the basis that there was no case against him.

“The judge, after hearing the case, found that there wasn’t any case against me,” he said. “(She) has advised me that as far as she knows, there is no law prohibiting me from taking pictures of outside facades of any building of interest in Jamaica.”

“She instructed them (the police) that they should return to me my film and my camera. I haven’t got the camera up to this present date, but I’ve got back the film. The negatives were developed [but] two pictures that I took of the embassy were not in the set of photos that I got back.”

On January 17, when the matter will again be called up in court, the police are to update the judge on whether Hamilton’s belongings had been returned.

When contacted, the only comment the US Embassy gave on the matter was that the Sunday Observer should contact the police.

Donald Pusey, assistant commissioner of police at the Mobile Reserve – the unit to which Woman Constable Thomas is assigned – reasoned that Hamilton must have aroused the suspicions of the diplomatic security group for them to have pursued him.

“He must have seemed suspicious at 2:00 am. In times like these, one has to think about terrorism.and I don’t know whether he represented himself well,” Pusey told the Sunday Observer.

Hamilton said Pusey was “very surprised” to hear that his camera had been confiscated and was instrumental in helping him recover the film.

But the man wants reparation for the way he was treated and for the losses he sustained. He told the Sunday Observer that he is taking the security firm to court.

“I have formulated a letter and forwarded it to them to say that I feel I was wronged and that the manner in which they handled me was wrong,” said Hamilton. “I want to recover the costs for my camera and for my glasses that were damaged when they pushed my face onto the ground.”

Hamilton said he felt betrayed by a system set up to protect him as a law-abiding citizen of Jamaica. “I feel very annoyed and disappointed to know that a situation like this can happen to me in Jamaica,” he said. “It’s as if the Americans have taken over our island and they dictate to us what is to be done and what is not to be done.

They have no regard for the freedom that we have here in Jamaica, the freedom for doing things that are legal. There’s no law in Jamaica that prohibits people from shooting pictures of public places, moreso, if you’re making these pictures for the general public’s info, which is my primary job. I feel disappointed that private securities have the opportunity, the wherewithal to instruct our police force in the way that they should do their jobs.”

thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com