No way, no how! - Female cop turns table on rapist
May 15, 2007
The man who attempted to rape Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Dorett Barrett-Latchman is someone she has known for at least 10 years. She surmised, while speaking with The Gleaner, that his intentions must have been to murder her after raping her, as he frequented her community and she could havereadily identified him.
"His whole intent must have been to rape and kill, because I cannot see for the life of me, for somebody who has known me and whom I have known over the years, what would be his whole purpose in just raping and leaving me, knowing fully well that I know him? He would have been hunted down and found. So his whole intent must have been to rape and then kill me!" she noted.
According to DSP Barrett-Latchman, she sometimes had at least two other women with her during her morning walks, but the one person whom she walked with most was overseas and she decided to go alone. She said she and her walking companions would pass the young man almost every morning without incident, even during the winter when the early morning hours were very dark.
However, despite the fact that daylight arrived earlier that morning than during winter, she thinks he may have decided to approach her because she was alone.
"Maybe this is something he had in his mind long ago, but seeing me on my own, he figured he could try a thing and get away with it," she mused as she reflected on the incident last Thursday in her office just outside Ocho Rios.
Held onto my hand
According to DSP Barrett-Latchman, the incident occurred approximately 5:40 a.m.
"It was broad, middle road, with houses on both sides. We (myself and the young man) were on the road alone at the time. I was walking on the right-hand side of the road going down, I noticed someone coming in the opposite direction," she recalled.
DSP Barrett-Latchman said that, as a rule, she never passed anyone that close, so she crossed over to the other side of the road.
However, just as they came parallel to each other, the young man crossed over to where she was and grabbed on to her.
"He suddenly switched into my path and held on to (my hand) I recognised him as somebody I know, so I said: 'Why are you holding me?' Because even though I have known him for a while, he is not someone that I talk to. I am not in the habit ofpassing and saying good morning to him," she stated.
"I tried to flash his hand off and said: 'Why are you holding me?' He came around and hugged me from the back, and I suddenly realised that this is not a joke thing! This is for real and the one morning that I (took) up my firearm and put it back down. So, I (decided that I ) would have to use what I had (to defend myself)," she continued.
"I had my dumb-bells, so I started screaming and I started to crouch to get him to crouch too, and I started beating him in the head, (meanwhile) he is trying to pull me into some bushes to the side of the road, and I decided that there is no way that you and I are going to go into any bushes this morning," she recalled with stony determination....
Author: Andrea Downer
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
