ComPol Weighs In on Unions’ Protest

Chester Williams

As you saw in our story on the teachers protest this morning, police removed them from in front of the National Assembly where they went beyond the barriers. The issues were that the teachers were not social distancing and they were blaring bullhorns and didn’t stay beyond the barriers, but also they didn’t have a permit to protest.  Commissioner of Police Chester Williams details the sequence of events from the law enforcement perspective and says that some of the protestors could face charges.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“I was briefed that the teachers had taken over the steps of the assembly building. You would know that these issues with the protests and so forth have been going on for quite some time. And again we are trying as best as we can not to have any confrontation. I always believe in diplomacy first and when diplomacy fails we take up our level of force to whatever extent it may need to go to address any particular incident. So, I dispatched Mr. Dawson on the ground and Mr. Vidal to speak to the teachers and to ask them to peacefully remove themselves from the Assembly Building and to come down to where they would normally be. Yes, I was told that at first there was some resistance and again I implored him to try and speak to the leaders to get the crowd to move and that was done eventually they moved down the stairs.  The fact that they were able to move without any further resistance that was okay with us and they have also been warned in terms of the breach of the COVID-19 regulations with the crowd that they are hauling and the fact that there is little to no social distance being maintained among the ranks. They were also warned about the use of the loud haler because by law you need a permit to use a loud haler and they had loud halers and not applied for a permit to use it. Those are offences we are looking at and we will determine if by the end of the day today if we are going to prosecute for those offences and then we see how we go from there.”

Commissioner of Police Chester Williams held a meeting with the union leaders following the incident at the National Assembly.