A man who recalled acting as a Good Samaritan by helping to arrest of a man suspected of snatching a chain from a male cruise ship visitor last week, disclosed that he has received death threats.
The man, who requested anonymity for obvious reasons, said he was conversing with a police officer at the Vendors Arcade in Castries when they heard cries for help.
“Somebody’s killing me,” the man, whom we will call John Doe, recalled someone screaming.
“When we look at the waterfront area, we saw like a guy holding some people and fighting with them,” Doe stated.
Doe told reporters in an interview on Monday that the assailant had an individual in a chokehold.
He explained that he and the police officer with whom he had been conversing ran to the victims’ aid.
Doe said he and the officer held the assailant, who was eventually put in handcuffs.
However, Doe said when he returned to the arcade, he learned that a group of young men had sent a warning that he would become a dead man.
“The day after that, when I came back the next morning, the officer told me try my best not to come in the arcade and be careful on the streets, not to show my face too much in the media because I am a dead man in Saint Lucia for what I do,” he told reporters.
Nevertheless, Doe said his intervention was not to hurt anyone.
“I want the nation to know that I did that, not to hurt anybody, but to defend somebody who is coming here. The tourism industry, that’s the only thing we depend on, and if the young people doing that bold face in the streets of Saint Lucia and we are not taking that serious, just now it will be worse than that,” the Good Samaritan asserted.
But his troubles were far from over.
Die said the police accused him of taking the chain from the man’s pocket who allegedly snatched the item from the cruise ship visitor.
“I never did that,” Doe told reporters.
“I asked them to show me the video. But they drop all the charges for the moment against me. They only have one charge against me for insulting a police officer for the same incident. I am sorry about that,” he stated.
He admitted saying something to an officer that was not ‘pleasant’.
Doe said the City Police put him in the same cell with the man he helped to arrest and another male.
“Is like they put me in a trap and I have to fight for my life and after a time they see like I just give up. Let them kill me inside deh and if I dead inside deh then they’ll have to tell the public why,” he stated.
Doe said they changed his cell, and he had to be hospitalized, eventually being discharged.
He told reporters he learned his lesson.
“I am sorry to say that, but I will never want to find myself in a situation to help somebody again and put my life in such danger,” Doe observed.
He said should he see someone in danger, he would prefer to walk away than assist and put his life at risk.
At the same time, Doe said he was willing to testify anonymously against the man accused of snatching the visitor’s chain.
St. Lucia Times has reached out to the City Police for a statement regarding Doe’s remarks.
PHOTO: Police arrest suspected chain snatcher.
