FORMER Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke wet his trousers when he ran into a group of policemen who took him into custody while he travelled with religious leader Rev Merrick ‘Al’ Miller in St Catherine last Tuesday, one law enforcer told the Sunday Observer.

Coke, 42, who is accused of being the leader of the ruthless Shower Posse, was travelling with Rev Miller along the Mandela Highway when police intercepted the sports utility vehicle, allowed Miller to leave and took Coke initially to the Spanish Town Police Station and later to Up Park Camp, the army’s headquarters in Kingston.

Miller was later charged with one count each of harbouring a fugitive and perverting the course of justice.

“The man p… up himself when him see the police,” one member of the party which intercepted the vehicle told the Sunday Observer on condition that his name is not mentioned.

“Him just look so frighten with this wig and the woman glasses that you would never believe this was the same man who everybody say is bad and mighty,” added the cop.

“He wasn’t sweating and the vehicle had the air condition on, so you could clearly see the impression on his pants that some wetting was going on when we took him out. Rain was in the area, but it wasn’t caused from that,” the policeman said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police assigned to the constabulary’s National Intelligence Centre Kevin Blake was non-committal when the Sunday Observer asked him about the matter last Friday, offering only that: “Well, let us say that it is the rainy season.”

The wetting of trousers is nothing new to wanted men. Kevin Tyndale, better known as Richie Poo, reportedly wet himself when he was captured by police on February 12, 2005.

Tyndale became head of the Gideon Warriors gang, based in Papine, eastern St Andrew, after the capture of its former leader Joel Andem in May 2004.

“He wet his pants,” a policeman who took part in the operation told the Sunday Observer at the time. “It was amazing to see a man whose name drives fear into many hearts, begging and pleading for his life,” added the policeman who did not wish to be named.

“Even after he was handcuffed he kept begging the officers not to kill him, and when he was taken to the lock-up he thanked the police for not killing him,” the cop added.

Tyndale — who was a suspect in 19 major crimes including murder, shootings and robberies — was accused of killing 56-year-old Ena Grant while she worshipped at a church in Land Lease, St Andrew, in June 2004. Police and eyewitness reports at the time said he entered the church, pointed the gun at the senior citizen, pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired. Amid the chaos that ensued, with worshippers fleeing, Tyndale corrected the problem on the firearm and shot Grant dead.

He was later convicted of murder, for which he was given a life sentence.

He was also found guilty of wounding with intent, illegal possession of firearm and shooting with intent, and received separate sentences.

“It is a normal human reaction,” said noted psychiatrist Dr Aggrey Irons in an interview.

“Such a situation is based on a lack of control… when there is a serious autonomic response, the autonomic nervous system just does that,” he said. “It is not because you are a coward, but something happens at the time that raises your level of awareness very suddenly.”

A medical doctor who opted for anonymity said that it was a natural reaction for something like that to occur, if that were the case with Coke.

“It can happen to normal individuals… the suddenness of that situation, where all the muscles relax and you lose control,” said the doctor. “Under normal circumstances when you do not urinate on yourself, it is because your brain is sending out signals of control. It happens all the while to people who are fearful… it is a phobia.”

Tyndale’s predecessor Andem, was also reported by the police as showing signs of nervousness when he was captured.

“He was trembling like a badly-tuned truck,” police superintendent Donald Pusey told the Observer at the time.