The killing of ‘Shakes’

EVERY ONE who knew him said that Ignatius “Shakes” Owen was a quiet, peaceful, mild mannered man. It seems totally out of character, then, that he would suddenly become violent after he was arrested by the Police on a maintenance warrant and placed in the Remand Yard of the Golden Grove Prison. But this is what we have been told by police sources, that Shakes, for no apparent reason, began spitting on prisoners, attacking and beating them, as a result of which, in retaliation, he was clobbered to death. Owen, a 47-year-old master mechanic of Maracas, St Joseph, was arrested on Thursday morning and died at the prison infirmary on Saturday morning suffering from what pathologist Hughvon DesVignes described as “multiple blunt traumatic injuries.” With blood in his stomach, Owen’s death was apparently precipitated by the tranquilizer therapy administered to him at the infirmary.

When members of his family were eventually permitted to see him, they found his body battered all over, his arms broken, his eyes swollen and some of his teeth missing. There is something horribly unsavoury about this brutal killing at the Golden Grove Remand Yard, but the critical question is, will the circumstances of Owen’s death be ever fully revealed? Past experience of such incidents, characterised by the instinctive reaction of the police and prison authorities to cover up such murderous events, has taught us not to be optimistic. What, for example, has become of the so-called investigation into the killing of 28-year-old Noel Stanley, of Bank Village, Carapichaima, who was beaten to death while in police custody last June? Stanley was held by prison officers who allegedly caught him on Frederick Street throwing something over the wall of the PoS prison. He was taken to the Belmont Police Station where, it was claimed, he complained of chest pains. Stanley was pronounced dead on arrival at the PoS General Hospital, suffering from severe internal injuries.

It is no surprise to us that absolutely nothing has come out of this “investigation” which has apparently disappeared into limbo. And we confidently expect that the same pattern of cover-up will prevail with respect to the savage beating which Owen received at the Golden Grove Remand Yard last Thursday. It is an outrage that persons, who are not criminals, can be callously beaten to death while in police custody or in the remand yard of prisons. We are also very uncomfortable with police stories of prisoners who, it is claimed, hanged themselves while being kept in station cells. But it is even more scandalous that the promised investigations into these acts of brutality almost invariably lapse into oblivion. And the culprits go free. Owen’s killing is particularly horrible, not only because of the battering he received but also because he was not a criminal; in fact the father of two was placed in Remand for defaulting on maintenance, a bailable offence.

His stay there was clearly temporary, so why would he suddenly become so violent in the company of hardened criminals? The improbability of such behaviour is underscored by his former employer, Century Eslon’s Michael Williams, who in a letter to Newsday relates: “Ignatius worked with me for 31 years since he was 15. He came from a good and decent family in Acono, and the whole village and his co-workers will testify that “Shakes”, as we called him, could not harm a fly. He was reserved and quiet, spoke only when spoken to, argued with nobody, could not raise his voice even when angry. If ever he was angry, he just became quiet.” He added: “Shakes was a part of the Williams family, and just as he shed tears when my wife was ill, she is surely doing the same for the brutal circumstances in which Shakes died.” There is something rotten in the prison killing of Ignatius Owen. But will it ever be exposed? Perhaps the top cop will say we are only raising this matter in order to sell papers.