Full probe into McLeod’s death

A POLICE CORPORAL and three policemen could very well be the subjects of a murder inquiry, after an unofficial report on the autopsy carried out yesterday on the body of a 23-year-old man, who died over the weekend while in police custody, showed he had been beaten on his head with a blunt object.

Shaun McLeod, father of one, arrived at the San Fernando General Hospital dead, mere minutes after he was held by police for using obscene language on Friday night. According to McLeod’s common-law-wife, Mackiba Cowan, the autopsy performed by Dr Hughvon des Vignes at the Forensic Sciences Centre, Port-of-Spain, revealed death was due to blunt force trauma to the head. The death certificate also stated the Mc Leod was already dead when he arrived at the hospital. However, when Newsday contacted head of Southern Division, Snr Supt Desmond Lambert, late yesterday evening, he said he had not yet received the official autopsy report from the investigators, since they witnessed the autopsy at the Forensic Sciences Centre in St James, and had not returned to Southern Division. Told about the autopsy results the family had given Newsday, Lambert said if this version was indeed true, the case file and autopsy report would be sent to Director of Public Prosecutions Geoffrey Henderson and also to the Acting Commissioner of Police Everald Snaggs, to decide what “action” would be taken. Sources told Newsday that it is likely that there would be a “speedy inquest” into the matter.

Mc Leod, father of a two-month-old baby boy, was contracted with Denny’s Enterprises and worked at the Point Lisas Atlas Methanol Plant. On Friday night he was arrested for using obscene language by a group of policemen in a jeep at Library Corner, San Fernando. The police officers had attempted to handcuff McLeod to a nearby post, and he resisted. Eyewitnesses claimed that he was “beaten” and then eventually taken away. His mother, Sharon McLeod said there was froth to the side of her son’s mouth and his fingers, left shoulder and left wrist were swollen and blue-black. Meanwhile, the results of the investigation into the death of 23-year-old  McLeod will be submitted to Ag Police Commissioner Everald Snaggs on Friday. McLeod died last Friday in San Fernando after being arrested by police for using obscene language. In a statement yesterday, Commiss-ioner Snaggs expressed his deepest sympathy to McLeod’s family. He assured the family that a full investigation into all the circumstances surrounding his death is being undertaken by a team of officers led by a senior member of the Police Service’s Homicide Bureau, and the results of that investigation will be submitted to his office on Friday.