If you see something, say something, but ‘document items found before turning in to police, or else…!’

A former OBSERVER media employee, Eutha Meade, is advising the public to take precise precaution when turning in lost or stolen items to the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda (RPFAB). Meade said she felt, “flabbergasted” at the St. John’s Police Station this past Monday as she alleged the lawmen had closed ranks against her and intimidated her after she tried to find out what had happened to an undisclosed sum of money that had mysteriously disappeared from her purse after a “Good Samaritan” found the purse on the street and turned it in to the police. “Anybody who finds something of value,” cautioned a distressed Eutha as she called into the Voice of the People late yesterday morning, “document it when you go to the station. So if it is something you know and they know, it would not be your word against theirs.” The former media worker alleged that a woman had turned in a purse belonging to her to the police, and went further to call her to alert her that her property had been left at the St. John’s Police Station with “US” money in it. However, when Meade arrived at the station, she alleged that a female officer handed over the purse with all its original contents save for an undisclosed amount of US currency that the Good Samaritan said was in the purse when she handed it over to the female police officer. “So, I asked [the female officer], ‘What has happened to my US that was in the purse?’” She said the officer replied that when she got it, the purse there was no money in it. According to Meade, the officer even suggested that, “perhaps it is the lady who brought in the wallet that stole the money out of the wallet”. At this point, Meade said she became irate, and threatened to call OBSERVER media at which time the female officer followed her outside and begged her not to call OBSERVER.