Cops arrest man for taking their photo – Jamaica

A photograph that Errol Nisbeth captured of himself while in police custody

BROWN’S TOWN, St Ann — Errol Nisbeth, an information technology professional and founder of the St Ann 360 advocacy group which operates a website and Facebook page that highlight happenings in the parish, said he was recently arrested after taking a photograph of a group of policemen talking to a handcart vendor in this town.

Nisbeth said that on Saturday, November 22 he was in the town, where he has lived for several years, when the police who were carrying out their duties ‘caught his eyes’ and he decided to take a photograph for his page. However, immediately after taking the photograph with his cellphone one of the policemen demanded that it be deleted.

“One of the policemen walk over to me and ask if mi just take a picture,” Nisbeth recalled. He said he answered in the affirmative and asked if it was illegal to do so. “Hey bwoy, delete mi picture out a yuh phone,” was the response of the policeman. Nisbeth said by then he had started to record the exchange on the same phone. He was subsequently searched, apparently for weapons, placed in a police vehicle and whisked away to the police station.

“When I reached to the police station they handcuffed my hands to an overhead shelf,” he said, adding that he was kept in that position for about three hours after which he was granted bail on a charge of ‘obstruction of justice’.

Nisbeth told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that the policeman told others at the station that he was taking a photograph of them while they were carrying out an operation. A policeman at the station, he said, told him that: ‘Bwoy yuh out of order fi a take picture a police’.

Nisbeth, who had his cellphone in his pocket, said he continued recording when the policeman who had requested that the photograph be deleted again made the demand at the station.

“‘Hey bwoy, delete mi picture out a yuh phone’,” Nisbeth reported the policeman as saying. He was then relieved of the phone by the policeman, who realised that the instrument was being used to record the discussions.

“Him delete the picture and my other documents,” Nisbeth claimed. However, he said that he was able to retrieve the images after he was released on bail.

Nisbeth said his wallet was also taken and searched by the police, who told him that they would be searching his house “because it look like mi in lotto scamming”.

“Mi just take a picture,” Nisbeth said, adding that he meant no harm, but believe his rights were violated by the police.

The St Ann 360 website, said Nisbeth, is highly focused on positive news and has always supported law and order.

In the meantime, he questioned why the police gave him a January 5 court date to appear in the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court in St Andrew instead of St Ann’s Bay.

“I would like to know why?” Nisbeth asked. He told the Observer that he did not recognise the location for the court appearance until he got home and so did not get a chance to ask the police the reason for this.

Nisbeth said he has since reported the matter to the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) by telephone, but was told he should go to one of the offices, which he intends to do.

The Observer was told yesterday that the commanding officer for the Brown’s Town Police Station was out of office when the newspaper sought the police’s comment on the matter.

jamaica observer