The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

A HAITIAN man whose rough arrest was captured in a viral video over a year ago, yesterday testified that an immigration officer told him he was beaten because Bahamians could not find work while he was gainfully employed at BTC.

In December 2019, Evince Gaston travelled in his company’s van to a Haitian village on Joe Farrington Road where he encountered immigration officers. An altercation followed between himself and three officers of the department, which was captured on cell phone video.

Shortly after the incident, Gaston was charged with resisting arrest and three counts of assaulting a public officer. When he appeared before Senior Magistrate Derence Rolle Davis at the time, he denied the allegations and the matter was subsequently adjourned for trial.

Yesterday when Gaston was questioned by his attorney, Roberto Reckley, he said at the time of the incident he was employed as a sales agent at the Bahamas Telecommunications Company and had been working at the corporation for three years.

Officers

Speaking through a Creole interpreter, the accused said that day when he and two of his co-workers visited the Haitian village, they saw police officers. Gaston said the officers did not stop them from working, so they continued to carry out their jobs. He said shortly after, an immigration bus “pulled up” and officers from the department got out of the vehicle and started to “run after people”.

The accused said none of the immigration officers approached him until one decided to “pull up” on him and his co-worker.

“He said hello,” Gaston stated. “He passed and left and I told him ‘I know you’ and he asked from where. I said ‘I spoke with you at the airport,’ (but) he said he didn’t know me.”

Gaston said a “few minutes later”, that same officer came back and asked him for his papers in Creole. He said the way the officer approached him made him feel afraid so he showed him his BTC ID. He said the officer told him that was not what he wanted, which prompted him to ask the officer “what he was talking about”.

“I told him that my wallet was in the BTC car but when I turned around to get it he punched me in my face,” Gaston continued.

“When I was about to fall, I went to hold on to him, but he continued to hit me. There were two other immigration officers nearby who come near to stop him from hitting me but he pushed them off...They put me on the floor, tear my clothes and handcuffed me.”

Gaston said before the handcuffs were placed on his wrists, the first immigration officer told his colleagues to “break his hand”. He said the officers then escorted him to the immigration bus where they hit his head against the vehicle three times before putting him inside.

“In the bus he told me Bahamians can’t find work but yet you working to BTC,” he stated.

“...I got hit in my face and bruised in my eye. When the immigration (officers) left the (detention) centre with me, they took me to the Carmichael Road police station. The officers there say they could not take me the way I am. I have to go to the hospital first.”

Gaston insisted he never assaulted any of the officers nor resisted arrest.

Yesterday, one of his co-workers who captured a video of the incident also testified in court.

Under oath, Tasha Dorviluse said on the day in question, she, Gaston and another colleague were doing their “regular routine” in the BTC vehicle when they headed to the Haitian village off Joe Farrington Road. She said she noticed about 15 police officers in the area who were joined by immigration officers about “10-17” minutes later.

Ms Dorviluse said she was standing outside the company car when the first immigration officer “stopped and hailed” her on “his way to the village”. She said he then walked past Gaston who greeted him and told the officer he knew him. She said when the officer told Gaston that he did not know him, the defendant said “okay, no problem”.

“He proceeded to enter the village and 10-20 seconds later he returned and questioned Evince and asked him for his ID,” she stated.

“(When) Evince show him his work ID he said he didn’t mean that one and when Evince turn to go in the vehicle to get his wallet he hit him in his face.”

Ms Dorviluse said the incident unfolded about three to five feet from where she was standing and she watched as the first immigration officer “repeatedly” hit Evince while holding his shirt’s collar.

She said at one point an “apparent” immigration supervisor told her she could not record, but she told the woman she had a right to do so.

“I put the phone away but thankfully the footage was saved,” she said. “I didn’t get to record the part where he had Evince on the floor and told the (other) officers to break his arm.”

A copy of the footage Ms Dorviluse recorded was played during the proceedings. In the short clip, three officers could be seen attempting to restrain Gaston as one of the officers appeared to hit the defendant while shouting: “Don’t play with me here bey, catch yourself!”

During the prosecution’s cross-examination, Inspector Lakesia Moss suggested that the video that was submitted into evidence was edited since the clip that was played through a jump drive in court was shorter than the actual video on Ms Dorviluse’s phone which played the footage twice.

She also suggested that Gaston could be seen resisting arrest since the defendant was captured pulling away from the officers in the clip.

The matter continues on March 16.