Toledo Construction Worker Tells of Police Beating for Intervening in Arrest
Mario Makin
Thirty-year-old Mario Makin of San Marcus, Toledo, says that four cops beat him and left him for dead in August 2016 and nothing has been done about it. The construction worker says he had only stopped at a shop on August thirteenth when he encountered four officers at a shop. He said the officers were manhandling a man who was intoxicated and he tried to intervene telling them that the man was not causing any problems. He said the officers attacked him and beat him to a pulp – the injuries he suffered were massive internal damage to his organs including his pancreas which he said has cause an onset of diabetes. Here’s what he has to say:
Mario Makin, Claims Police Brutality
“I was beaten up by some police officers in my village; San Marcus Village. They beat me up by Mister Manuel Bah’s house by a little shop. They beat me and they see that I dropped dead and then they picked up my body and then they bring me out of the village and there they dumped by body on the side of the road – the southern highway until around three or four a.m. They came back and checked on me if I was dead and they began shaking me up and at this point I regain back my consciousness. They tell me to get up and I couldn’t get up and they tell me again a second time to get up and mek I run home. I couldn’t take the pain no more. I had to charter another vehicle to take me back to the hospital. At this point there was a different doctor there and she hurry arranged for the ambulance to transport me to southern regional hospital. She said I was going to get a surgery and at around 2 in the morning and they bring me back to Dangriga hospital andthey performed an emergency surgery on me.”
Andrea Polanco
“A surgery to what part of your body?”
Mario Makin
“…on my abdomen. They said that it was my guts that was busted up. After that first surgery in Dangriga, the pain still continued and then they said they will have to transfer me to Western Regional Hospital and there they said they would do another surgery on me and there they cut off three pieces of my guts there at the Belmopan hospital and they joined it with some sort of tube now. After that second surgery I still have difficulty to breathe. I was in the Intensive Care Unit at the KHMH and there I was admitted in a critical condition for about four days.”
Andrea Polanco
“Did you make a report, following the attack, there at the police station in San Marcus?”
Mario Makin
“I reported it to the Officer in Charge there at the Punta Gorda Station but up to yet I haven’t heard anything about it; whether they are investigating it or not.”
Andrea Polanco
“What would you like to see be done?”
Mario Makin
“Yes. Those officers need to be held accountable for what they did to me because they hurt me for no reason. They have destroyed my life. Right now I can’t do my construction work again.”
