BY ROSS SHEIL, Staff Reporter
MAYOR OF KINGSTON, Desmond McKenzie, has threatened to take legal action after he was tear-gassed by the police yesterday, close to Jamaica House in St Andrew.
The Half-Way Tree police are said to be investigating the incident while a separate investigation into police conduct is being done by the Bureau of Special Investigations.
Mr. McKenzie was reported to have been targeted by a police officer who fired a tear gas canister that exploded at his feet, causing him to faint. He was then treated at the St. Andrew Memorial Hospital. Councillor Conrad Combs of North East St. Ann, Beacher Town division, also claimed to have been hit in the side by a canister.
The incident occurred after Mr. McKenzie and approximately 50 other Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) mayors, members of parliament and councillors left Devon House on Waterloo Road to walk around the corner and up to Hope Road to Jamaica House to deliver a letter complaining of under-funding for local government.
The police justified their actions under Sections 6 and 21 of the Public Order Act and Senior Superintendent in charge of operations, Owen Ellington, maintained they had acted within the law: "The police used all persuasive forces to get them to desist. That did not work and police resorted to the use of tear smoke to disperse the crowd."
"We weren't selected, we were elected by people and they have treated us with gross disrespect and the Jamaica Constabulary Force owes the mayors and councillors of this country a public apology," Mayor Mckenzie later said. "There is a police officer who assaulted me from Half-Way Tree (Police Station). I have his number and I have instructed my lawyer to take action against him."
Local Government Minister Portia Simpson Miller and Robert Pickersgill, Minister of Transport and Works, visited the scene and later went to visit the mayor in the hospital.
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