00:00Karon Alexis was held under a preventive detention order in April of this year.
00:05The order alleges that Alexis is, quote,
00:07the leader of the Rated R gang, which is an organized crime group
00:11with access to a cache of high-powered firearms and ammunition,
00:15and involved in shootings, trafficking of illegal narcotics, firearms and ammunition, end quote.
00:21In an interview with Express journalist Vivian Bowen, Alexis tells of the process of his arrest.
00:27All right. Well, I wasn't here. I wasn't in a class.
00:30I went to a class. It was in the mosque.
00:33So when they came here, I wasn't home.
00:36The police boarded the home, special forces, alongside gang, national task force.
00:43They all board the premises here.
00:46The first thing they did was they disconnected the cameras.
00:50They put everybody out of the house, and then they came to my section,
01:12However, when police could not find him at his home, they spared no effort in locating and detaining him,
01:18and he is accusing the TTPS of destroying and taking a number of valuables from his home.
01:24About ten minutes after, they surrounded the mosque, and they came in, special forces alone.
01:33They came to the mosque and I had my phone in my hand, they asked me if I was recording
01:38them,
01:38and I told them they must have cameras that have been recorded, and I was kind of calmed down everything
01:44when they realized that there are cameras here too.
01:48They destroyed the cameras from home here, they destroyed the security system, the motion sensors,
01:55and they took some cash as well, as well as tablets and flash drives and that kind of thing.
02:02Alexis says his attempts to find out why he was arrested and who was in charge of the operation leading
02:07to his arrest have been met with nothing but sidestepping.
02:12Alexis says his attempts to find out why he was in charge of the operation.
02:21He was in charge because the operation went on in such a way that he didn't know who was in
02:24charge.
02:24He was the senior superintendent who signed the first PDO, the 70s one.
02:42Alexis said his time in detention revealed that he was not the only one that this sort of situation has
02:48happened to,
02:49and out of his possessions which he says were taken away, he wants his DVR system to show his side
02:55of the story.
02:56He scoffs at the body camera conversation and counts himself lucky.
03:00I see the funny thing, right?
03:02Traders seem to be copying protocols and legislation from all over the world,
03:09but we don't want to copy the body cameras and the transparency from other services and departments.
03:15So, I'm not specializing in law enforcement, but to me, transparency should be the first step towards trying to build
03:23trust to the public.
03:25I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. Our Joshua didn't survive.
03:30It's the exact same thing.
03:32Alexis says the manner in which the police carry out their duties is not befitting of people responsible for upholding
03:38the law,
03:39and he turned his attention to the politicians and law association for being mum on the matter.
03:45This problem didn't start yesterday, it didn't start last year, it didn't start a year before.
03:50There's a problem going on between both administrations.
03:53So you find that the both sides play in politics and play in hypocrites.
03:57When it comes to the facts of the situation, the police are overstepping the bungs and being abusive.
04:01The law association is not like they're sleeping. We are no civil rights lawyers. We have nobody that's standing up
04:06for poor people.
04:07He says the police had ample powers under the state of emergency and should have done their jobs properly instead
04:14of arresting persons and manipulating statistics.
04:17If the police within the state of emergency could not identify who the criminal was,
04:25you lock up so much of people, they still can't bring up credible charges to keep them behind bars, they
04:29can't bring no convictions.
04:31And the other thing they just do, they just manipulate the statistics by saying when you're locked up, let's say
04:34crime solved.
04:36Arrest don't mean a crime has been solved.
04:38Alexis says it does not matter if the best legislation is put in place, because without transparency and accountability, there
04:46will never be real change.
04:48Dominic Ramroop, TV6 News.
