San Fernando resident Anthony Gaskin, who spent a night in a cell and was fined $250 for littering the road with a styrofoam cup, believes he was unfairly treated by the police.
However, PC Ramchairth, the officer who arrested and charged Gaskin, has caught the attention of environmental activist Marc de Verteuil, who has hailed him as hero.
Speaking with reporters yesterday at his home at Embacadere, San Fernando, Gaskin felt the police had spited him by not giving station bail for “such a minor offence.
“I suffer like a dog (in the police station cell) on Sunday,” said Gaskin as he recalled the incident.
Gaskin, who is unemployed, was arrested shortly after 9 am on Sunday at Mucurapo Street and taken to the San Fernando Police Station, where he remained until Monday morning when he was taken before a San Fernando magistrate charged with littering.
He pleaded guilty before Senior Magistrate Nanette Forde-John and was fined $250.
The magistrate scolded Gaskin for his actions, saying if everyone acted like him the country would be a dirty place.
She ordered him to pay $70 forthwith and gave him seven days to pay the balance of the fine or else face jail time.
Shaking his head as he recalled his experience yesterday, Gaskin, who will celebrate his 54th birthday next Tuesday, said he went to the grocery to buy ingredients to cook lunch, which consisted of lentil peas, rice and liver, for his two daughters.
On his way back home, Gaskin said he stopped and bought a drink of puncheon.
“When I done I just throw the cup on the road and the police van stop and the officers just come and handcuff me,” he said.
At the time, Gaskin said he was not sure for what he was being arrested.
He said, however, he was told by the police that after they took his fingerprints he would be granted his own bail but that never happened.
“I had to lie down on the cold concrete (in the cell). It did not feel good at all. They had no right to keep me in there for so long for that petty offence.
That offence come like gambling and obscene language. What they did was wrong,” he added.
Gaskin said the pack of liver was put in the refrigerator in the station after he complained to the police it would spoil. Although he was offered meals at the station, Gaskin said he declined.
While he is aware that littering is against the law, Gaskin said he never thought he would be arrested for the offence.
But Gaskin, who admitted he had previous run-ins with the law, said he had put the incident behind him and offered this advice to other people: “Do not litter.”
He said he was released from the cell shortly after the case was called after the officer who charged him went to the station and retrieved the $70 he had on him when he was arrested and took it to him so he could pay the court.
Gaskin said he has been going through difficult financial issues and even received an eviction notice from the Housing Development Corporation. He appealed to members of the public to help him find a job so he could keep his home and improve his living conditions.
Kudos from environmentalist
However, environmentalist Marc de Verteuil, who publicly commended Ramchairth as a hero on his Facebook page, said in an email to this newspaper that while he could not comment on the police procedure, he would like to commend Ramchairth for taking a leadership stance in the war on litter.
“Trinidad is slowly becoming a labasse with people thinking it is perfectly okay to drop their trash where they stand.
“If all police acted like Constable Ramchairth, 99 per cent of littering would stop. Constable Ramchairth is my hero for the day.”
De Verteuil offered the officer, through his company WOW Expeditions, a free, private tour, for him, his wife and children “to say thank you on behalf of a litter-weary nation.”
He said Ramchairth was a fine example to all.