A three-month-old baby with breathing difficulties arrived at the Juan Manuel Márquez hospital in Havana at serious risk to his life last Saturday, after a traffic officer stopped the bus transporting him for 20 minutes.
The baby's father recounted on his Facebook profile Miranda Miranda that his neighbor was the only one who could provide them with transportation to the hospital.
However, during the journey, they were intercepted by a police officer who, despite the obvious emergency, asked for the driver's documentation and conducted a breathalyzer test, disregarding the severity of the baby's condition.
The complainant and his wife desperately tried to make the officer understand that their daughter could not breathe: “The baby is still struggling to breathe... a three-month-old girl, and he didn’t care,” he emphasized in his statement.
According to the father, the delay of 15 to 20 minutes worsened the baby's condition, which ultimately required her to be transferred by another vehicle that stopped to help.
The girl arrived at the hospital in serious condition and is currently staying in the respiratory unit, he reported.
"If something had happened to the baby because of that officer, what would I do?" questioned the father, who also reported that the driver who helped them was penalized with the revocation of his license, highlighting the insensitivity of the police in Cuba, which remains unpunished in incidents like this.
The father requested that his story be shared on social media in hopes that the incident does not go unpunished and that the authorities take action regarding the agent's lack of ethics.
The Cuban police frequently abuse their power, exhibiting a troubling level of insensitivity.
In July, a Cuban woman reported a case of police abuse against herself, her husband, and her mother, which took place in Havana.
"I write this to ensure that the authorities of this country understand who they are leaving their Cuban people in the hands of—Cubans who are being physically and mentally abused by the very police who are operating according to their own convenience, where the laws are neither fair nor upheld by them," wrote Yenisey Borrero Cuéllar in the first of three posts made in the last few hours in the Facebook group Reporting Crimes in Cuba.
That same month, a Cuban mother reported a beating inflicted on her son by a police officer in Havana during a birthday party.
Filed under: