Vendor blames rum for beating up cops

A 26 year-old shoe vendor admitted to assaulting two police officers earlier this month at a Corporate Area nightclub, indicating that it was as a result of his ingesting alcohol.

"A the rum a talk," Michael Brooks told investigators attached to the Half-Way Tree Police Station, following his arrest on June 10. The report, as read by the prosecutor, evoked laughter inside Courtroom Two at the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Thursday, where Brooks pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

It was shared that, on the aforementioned date at 4 a.m., the police responded to a call of a dispute between men at a club on Constant Spring Road in St Andrew. Upon the police's arrival, Brooks was identified as one of the men involved in the melee, and police officers tried to calm him down. However, the officers' efforts proved futile and Brooks used a bottle of alcohol to hit one of the officers in his head, and punched the other officer in the face.

"I was feeling nice at the moment," Brooks told Senior Parish Judge Sanchia Burrell, adding that he went to the club at midnight.

"Boy, the work [of the police] is really hard," the senior jurist responded.

"It is not okay that you hit the police, drunk or otherwise. You need to know your limit," Judge Burrell said.

Brooks was then made the subject of a probation order for 18 months, on both counts of assault. A fingerprint order was also made by the judge.