| Kenneth "Big Tom" Flowers, police say he is a notorious street figure, but he says the cops have been unjustly targeting him ever since he was deported in 2013.
And, earlier this week, when the police went to search him and another man - things took a turn. He felt the officer was conducting an improper search of his wallet, and when he had an exchange of words with the cop, he was taken in for indecent words.
Now, that's a very basic charge - and most offenders are usually given what is called a "sign bail".
But, Flowers says he was kept in lockdown for 48 hours, and not even charged, which he calls a disrespect and an injustice. He told us this in a wide ranging interview today:.,..
Kenneth Flowers, Complains About Police
"The people who have power will look at me and tell me you have 48 hours to get a charge. That wrong, because if you already everyting for me and I could get a police bail for a mister meander, you supposed to give me. If you keep me there for 48 hours that means you are violating my rights, because I have things to do. I have a job. So you are stopping me from my job, because I don't want to give you a gun or bullets. This is what the police have to stop."
Reporter
"You have been searched, detained, even beaten many times. The police are persistently after you, not because they have time to waste. They believe that you are the centrepiece of a lot of the criminal enterprise that is happening in Belize City. What would be your response to that?"
Kenneth Flowers, Complains About Police
"My response to that is because I am not afraid to stay out here. Out hre is where it starts, and out here is where everything is. All of them who talk about they have money and they want to help people, they are not out here to see what is happening to the youths out here and the people who are suffering. I am out here to see that."
Reporter
"You said earlier that everybody doesn't have anything, now somebody has to have something. If you want to organize, you have to get that truck on the road and you need to put in gas. You need resources."
Kenneth Flowers, Complains About Police
"I am doing that myself. I take my day to day hustling so I can try make things positive happen for the people who have the talent."
Reporter
"Law enforcement, they say your everyday hustling is the wholesale movement of marijuana. Now marijuana is legal to smoke, so somebody has to sell it."
Kenneth Flowers, Complains About Police
"Let me tell you something, my business contains everything. I have weed Wacker, I sent people out to work, I get job from different places. It's not about weed. I smoke weed and weed is not really a drug that is killing off this one and that one. It's not a gun. Even the man who is at the top who smokes weed..."
Reporter
"And its legal, but somebody has to supply it and supplying it isn't legal and men die because they want to supply this one and you want to supply that one turf."
Kenneth Flowers, Complains About Police
"I will not make drugs get between me and the people or make drugs get between me and any turf, because you can't control the turf. It doesn't matter what you do, you can't control a turf."
Reporter
"You are running a game out here, you are trying to project a certain image, but we know in the streets, it's another story. There are people who will say that."
Kenneth Flowers, Complains About Police
"Well, all the individuals knows me in the streets, from every neighbourhood, from every gang. Whenever I meet you it's one thing that I say to you from the day I came back to Belize, I never come with negativity. Its straight positivizes I speak from my mouth to anyone of the neighborhood I meet and everyone of them could say that, but you know some people have fear because they hear about your past and your background and people use that against me, even the children who grew up who don't even know me, they know me as a threat, because you teach them about me as a threat."
Reporter
"You feel that the name "Big Tom" this legend of Big Tom really casts a taint on you?"
Kenneth Flowers, Complains About Police
"Well I feel like that name sets a negative image for me and people look at me for the negative part to look up to me. Dont look up to me for the negative path, look up to me for the right path that we are starting to walk. This is how I will walk and what I will do."
Flowers says that his main job now is promoting unity through his music promotion outfit.
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