Violators of Quarantine Regulations during Nomination Day to be Dealt With
A number of persons have been arrested for violating the quarantine regulations either for social distancing or for not wearing a mask. And according to Commissioner Chester Williams, over the next few days, the department will be reviewing pictures and videos captured over the course of the day where party supporters were in clear violation of S.I. 149 of 2020. While we were covering the day’s events, a News Five crew witnessed when a pair of women were taken into custody outside of Saint Luke’s Methodist School, the nomination station for the Pickstock division. News Five spoke with senior officer Reymundo Reyes shortly after he instructed a number of supporters to alight the pan of a pickup truck.
Supt. Reymundo Reyes, Regional Commander, Eastern Division
“You see anything happening Moody?”
Duane Moody
“Yes sir. It seems like you were stopping people from going in the pan of the pickup.”
Reymundo Reyes
Supt. Reymundo Reyes
“They have protocols and procedures.”
Duane Moody
“Sir so social distancing; that is the issue at hand?”
Supt. Reymundo Reyes
“Should I answer that?”
Duane Moody
“Yes sir. We want to know that everything is happening the way it is supposed to.”
Supt. Reymundo Reyes
“Well it went well. Everything is going good so far. Thank God everything is going peacefully.”
Duane Moody
“Has anybody been charged or taken into custody for not adhering to the social distancing rules?”
Supt. Reymundo Reyes
“Not at the moment.”
Chester Williams
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
“Yes, a few persons were arrested for breaching the quarantine regulations. And again, as I had said, it is important that we adhere to the quarantine regulation with a view to ensure that we contain the further spread of the COVID virus within our communities. And so there were people who were not practicing social distancing, they were dealt with; there were persons who were not wearing masks, some of them were dealt with. But again, the arrests do not reflect the amount of violations that were out there and I wish that the police were more forceful in enforcing the regulations because for the most part the police officers were still warning people. I have said the time to warn has come and gone. We have a number of photographs that were taken of persons who were in violation and again, we try as best as we can to avoid confrontation. We know that if we were to make certain arrests out there, the fact that people’s blood was running hot and they sense that feeling of victory and so forth, we did not want to escalate nothing or to have a confrontation with people. So what I advised the officers to do was to take photographs and video of persons who were in violation and then we are going to review those within today and tomorrow and then we are going to pull in some people for them to be charged.”
