To the editor:
On Saturday, Dec. 20, the day of the accident north of Duck Lake, I was a pedestrian (the buses couldn’t get through) and was not allowed to go past the accident to get to Winfield.
Then a kind worker let me rest in his pickup.
After an hour of waiting for the road to open, I walked over to about five feet away from the ribbon where a policeman was standing about 10 feet away from a man on the inside of the ribbon: I wanted to ask the policeman if it was OK to get across by walking along the lakeshore.
Before I had a chance to ask him, he kept saying in a very rude manner over and over again: “I don’t want to talk to you, go” and other stuff he kept repeating over and over and pointing.
I stepped back to about 15 feet and said I only wanted to ask you a question.
Then I stopped and looked at the bush by the lake for a few seconds, when he still kept yelling at me to go, as he came over and grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me back some more, saying, “Do you want me to put handcuffs on you?”
By now I was about 25 feet from the ribbon.
Had he been polite and civilized, he could have politely said ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want to talk to you right now.’ And at that I would have walked away and gone through the bush and along the lake right then, without asking. Or he could have simply listened to the question with good manners.
All this to say, you hear of so many stories on the news of policemen killing civilians needlessly, without getting to the root of the story. They just want to throw their weight around. And no one can sue them. Do they ever tell the truth? This has to be stopped. They need retraining. I am almost 84, and had a small taste of senseless brutality.
As it turned out, the road didn’t get opened until 5 p.m. and I had to walk home in the rain and in the dark, which wasn’t even safe.
I am telling the truth and thanks for hearing me out.
E. Tekoa, Kelowna
