News

SUVs a target?

By DAVID DUNKLEY, Staff Reporter

CALL IT ENVY, call it discrimination, but drivers of Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) agree on one thing. The police are targeting them on the road. The drivers of these heavy-duty vehicles say this is a shameful and unecessary violation of their rights and are crying foul.

Many of these motorists have complained to THE WEEKEND STAR about being stopped several times and questioned as to their ability to get money to buy these vehicles, THE WEEKEND STAR understands.

They feel they are targeted because the police believe that only drug dealers are able to buy such vehicles and therefore they are stopped and treated as such. One motorist complained that he was stopped eight times during a three hour trip from Kingston to Montego Bay, St. James.

Noel Walters, a businessman, told THE STAR he has parked his Chevrolet Avalanche permanently because he is fed up and tired of being pulled over by the police. He says sometimes when he is stopped the police do not even check his license or the papers for the vehicle but just ask him impertinent questions.

"If them stop me to check on my papers or search the vehicle then go ahead. They shouldn't be asking where I get money to buy such a vehicle? Why the vehicle have to be tinted? and accused me of being in 'undercover business," Walters said. "Them want to know how much businesses me have and how much money them make, how much time me fly out, how much houses me have and how much money in me bank account. They are rude."

The situation caused Walters to purchase a Grand Vitara which he drives around and he only uses the Avalanche for joyrides. But even then he is still stopped, although not as frequent as with the Avalanche. "Boss, me sell the Vitara and buy a car and a it me a use. To show that is just because of the vehicle me all drive without insurance on the car and all now not once me get stop," he said. Just as upset as Walters is Anthony Burnside. He was not stopped by the police but his son, who was in Jamaica recently for a two-week vacation, went around in his Escalade and the police, it seems, did everything to ensure the vacation was a 'memorable' one.

"He went to several parts of the Island and is 11 times police stop him," Burnside revealed. "One time even a police car travelling in the opposite direction turn back, drive him down and stop him one day when he was heading home. Me tell him him shouldn't stop but should come straight home let me tell them bout them Ps and Qs," he said.

He says one of the main reasons given by the police for stopping the vehicle is to check for guns and drugs, "but when he tells them he has no gun, they ask him how him can a drive a car like that and don't have a gun. Our policemen don't have any sense."

Crime chief Deputy Commissioner Lucius Thomas, says he does not believe the drivers of these vehicles are being targeted. He said that bearing in mind that a number of SUVs were stolen abroad and brought into the island, some illegally, then it would not hurt for an officer to satisfy himself as to the acquisition of the vehicle, hence the questions. He added that should a motorist feel offended he/she can get a lawyer and/or make a complaint. "I can't speak to whether such reports were made to the other places but none have been made at the Commissioner's Office," DCP Thomas said.

Policemen from each Divisions can do roadblocks and spot checks in their area. But those attached to the Police Traffic Department and special squads, such as the Anti-Crime Task Force and Mobile Reserve, could go anywhere and conduct spot checks.

Except for Mobile Reserve, none of these entities keep statistics of the type of vehicles they stop and check. Efforts to get these stats proved futile.

Checks with the Office of Professional Responsibilities revealed that they have received no reports from motorists of these vehicles about being targeted, while the Police Complaints Department said such reports would not reflect in their records as they would just classify it as harrassment and it would take too long to check the nature of a complaint.

Audrey Taylorsaid her morther, who is a registered nurse working in the US, sent down a Mitsubishi Pajero and since she began driving it, she is constantly stopped by the police.

"When me tell them is my mother send it down, them ask me what she do and how long and when me tell them, them say she could not make enough money to buy such a vehicle and clear it," she recalled. "Mi fed up a dem. Sometime me rather take taxi."

She says two of her friends, one drives a Honda CRV and the other a Ford F150 complain of the same thing. "If I pass them (police) five times for the day they will stop me three times, I swear," Taylor said, adding that her mother wants to buy a Prado or a BMW X5 but she has deterred her from doing so.