Some days ago two gay men were viciously attacked on the Caribbean island of St Maarten. While all such attacks are heinous, they are common enough throughout the world that the details of specific attacks no longer stand out. One would, however, expect a certain level of decency from the Dutch possession of St Maarten. The rule of law that pertains in the Netherlands, however, does not seem to be practiced much on this island.
The beating of two gay Americans with tire irons in this Dutch Caribbean island was "barbaric and inhumane" and the attackers will be punished, St. Maarten's top tourism official said Wednesday.Indeed, beating people with tire irons is most assuredly barbaric. What is also barbarous is declining to promptly investigate such actions. According to
Richard Jefferson (one of the victims still able to speak coherently):
"To have somebody pull a tire iron out from inside their car and go after you is just crazy," Jefferson told CBS. "They joke it was the friendly island. It was very unfriendly the other night. The car backs up and this little guy gets out with this tire wrench. And I'm going 'What the hell's going on around here?' And, quite frankly, that's the last I knew...So I called the police station and called the detectives bureau, and the detective on duty said, 'We have no report of anything happening.' So I was going, 'This is crazy. At least four of my friends called it in.'"His head now bears a huge scar, dozens of stitches, and a titanium plate implanted by neurosurgeons, and at least four people reported the attack. Mr. Jefferson also spoke with
ABC news:
"The police response has been no police response," he said. "The best way I can explain the police response is when the detective finally came after three phone calls to get my report, he asked, 'Why should I even bother talking to you? Are you guys even going to file charges? You are just going back to America.' Police were totally indifferent to the situation, the crime, or to the seriousness of it." "Two days after the incident I had not heard from the police," Jefferson said. "Yet I heard from the Department of Tourism, which told me they were taking over the investigation. I couldn't help but laugh. It is ludicrous that the tourism department is trying to prosecute and become a police department. They are not the experts in police work; they are the experts at getting tourists to the island. It's like saying you got hurt in Miami and the Miami Chamber of Commerce is investigating your beating." I can well imagine that St Maarten's Department of Tourism is concerned. People like me might get the idea that the Dutch half of the island is populated by tire iron-wielding barbarians and equally barbarous police officers who seem to think that such attacks are trivial.
(Edited to remove an error of fact.)