by TRACY MOORE

A SENIOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL is calling on authorities to deal with vagrants, who are becoming more aggressive in their behaviour.

Director of the National Council for Science and Technology, Lennox Chandler, told the SATURDAY SUN yesterday from his office at Reef Road, St Michael, that a vagrant scratched his car with a piece of broken glass on Baxter's Road last month, which led to him paying $500 for repairs.

"I was driving on Baxter's Road on February 28 at about 7 a.m. when a man was flagging down a taxi in front of me. The taxi came to a stop and the man made a motion that he was scratching the taxi. In his left hand he had a piece of wood and in the right hand he had a piece of glass from what looked to be a glass louvre.

"Then he came in front my car as well and I manoeuvred out of his way but he kept coming . . . he came to the right side of the car with the glass and scratched it from the back door onto the right fender to back bumper.

"At this time all sorts of things are going through my head. Suppose I drove this car over this man, then what happens? My situation could have escalated.

"What should a person do when they are forced to face these people who are getting more aggressive? Whose responsibility is it to deal with these people? Is it the police or the Welfare Department?

"When they are charged and gone to the Psychiatric Hospital and then released, they do the same thing and then each agency says 'they are not our responsibility'," he charged.

Chandler said when he called the police a couple hours later, police already had the man charged for apparently doing the same to other drivers.

"Are we going to wait until one of our precious tourists is attacked and injured or worse, before we move against these vagrants?" Chandler queried.

In January several employees at the Treasury Building in Bridgetown staged a work stoppage in protest after a colleague, Doreen Elliott, was attacked and robbed by a vagrant.

She was struck in the head by a vagrant brandishing an object, who also allegedly removed items from her handbag.

At the time, Derek Alleyne, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), called for action to address the number of vagrants in The City.

tracymoore@nationnews.com