SIMPSON BAY--An American tourist couple was arrested in Simpson Bay around 10:00pm Sunday for disorderly conduct, destruction of property and assaulting a police officer following a night at Topper’s Restaurant and Bar that turned into intoxicated belligerence.
The incident started after the man reportedly forced himself into Topper’s kitchen and started destroying plates and glasses. He was said to be heavily intoxicated.
Two police officers and a member of the St. Maarten Volunteer Corps VKS responded to the incident.
Bystanders captured videos of the arrest on their mobile phones, which circulated widely in the hours after the incident.
One video begins with the man and woman being handcuffed and physically restrained on the ground in Topper’s parking lot by the responding officers. The man was shirtless, and the woman was in her underwear. It is unclear why they were not properly clothed.
The man screamed, “Get off me!” while the VKS officer knelt on his back and, despite being in St. Maarten, he quoted lines from 2002 Jamaican gangster movie “Shottas”. He tried kicking the VKS officer, but the blows were hopelessly weak because of his position lying face-down in the dirt.
While being led away to the waiting police pickup truck, the man interacted with bystanders. “I’m a gangster. You touch me in the United States and you [will – Ed.] die,” he told an onlooker who was telling him to calm down.
When the onlooker reminded him that he was not in the United States, the man said, “[Expletive] that! I’m gonna die with dignity!”
He struggled with the officer who was trying to get him to sit in the police truck, and the officer had to roughly force him in the vehicle.
Another video captured the following moments. The video showed a police officer crumpled over in agony after apparently being hit in the groin. The woman was now sitting handcuffed in a private vehicle at the roadside.
The VKS officer accused her of kicking his colleague and she hotly denied it. “I didn’t kick him! You see me kick him?” she said.
Suddenly the handcuffed man opened the police truck’s door, and the VKS officer turned away from the woman to help restrain the unruly arrestee.
The woman then saw her chance to attack the injured officer, who was still on his hands and knees in pain. With the VKS officer distracted by her partner, she jumped out of the private car and sharply kicked the injured officer in the stomach.
The half-naked and handcuffed women then bolted and made it to the other side of the street before falling face-first into the pavement when another officer tried to grab her. She was then dragged back across the pavement to the police truck.
The couple was later transported to the Philipsburg police station for questioning.
