Farmer says disgruntled employee might have committed the act
A Fair Hall man is warning consumers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to be mindful when buying and eating watermelons after he found pins in two fruits he bought from a farming couple in Georgetown.
The man, who asked not to be identified in this article, said he bought the fruits from a farm in Langley Park, from which he is accustomed to buying.
iWitness News was able to confirm that he made a report to the police about the incident and officers called in one of the farmers, who speculated that a disgruntled employee might have committed the act.
The man said he paid EC$60 for the two watermelons, which weighed about 25lbs, and placed them in his fridge when he got home.
On Saturday, there were some workmen at his house and he invited them to a watermelon break, during which he cut one of the fruits into slices and distributed them.
“Then one of the guys said, ‘Hey, what’s this?’ Then he showed me, a needle protruding — one was in his mouth and two inside of the slice I gave to him,” the Fair Hall man told iWitness News.
He said he was surprised and thought that something was wrong with his knife, causing a piece to embed in the fruit.
The man said that when he checked, the knife was intact so he urged the workman to throw away the watermelon.
He said that on further reflection, he considered that he might have been the victim of “some kind of a sabotage or act of terrorism” so he asked his workman to retrieve the watermelon.
He said he went to the Georgetown Police Station on Monday and filed a report and two officers accompanied him to the home of the farmers from whom he bought the watermelon.
“… the police approached the residence, and children came to the window and said nobody was at home.
“The police lady said to me, ‘Hey, I’m hearing the voice of an adult in the background advising the kids.’”
The officer then further asked the children if they were sure that no adult was at home.
The children said that their mother had gone to Sandy Bay and their father was at the farm.
“I said, ‘OK. But his vehicle is in the yard with a phone in it’,” the customer said, adding that the children responded that their father had used the other vehicle.
The man told iWitness News that they waited for about 15 minutes, after which the male farmer returned to the yard.
The police questioned him about the pins that were embedded in the watermelon.
“He didn’t seem surprised. He said, ‘I bought them from someone else,” the customer said, adding that when they cut the watermelon in the farmer’s presence, another pin fell out.
He said the farmer said he was going to call his partner.
“To our surprise, she came out of the house. When the police asked her about it, she said, she grew the watermelons and a disgruntled employee may have done that.”
The Fair Hall man noted the different stories that the farmers had given about how pins might have come to be in the watermelons.
“I think that’s where the police needed to act, but they failed to. They took her to the station. They took a statement from her, they took one from me, but she’s still allowed to sell watermelon, and not knowing the condition of the watermelon she’s selling or who’s responsible for it.”
The Fair Hall man told iWitness News that the police then told him they will conduct further investigation.
“But the reason why I contacted you is because I’m fearful that other innocent people could be buying watermelons,” the man said, adding that the farmers sell their fruits elsewhere also.
He said people who might purchase watermelon from them with pins inside could be injured unknowingly.
He said the police kept the rest of the watermelon, as part of their investigation.
“I can’t tell them how to do their job, but I think their actions were inadequate given the seriousness of the matter,” said the man, who also described the police as cooperative.
He said he had found six pins inside the watermelon. “However, if you look around the watermelon, there are indentations; we can see others were forced in,” the man told iWitness News.
“Right now, the risk is extremely high, not only pins, but someone could now go further and inject poison into these things. The mind is as far as you can go with it,” the man said, noting the fluidity of the market for agricultural produce in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The man told iWitness News that he had brought agricultural produce from the farmers before and they had shown him what they said was their farm.
“And besides that, they usually sell on the road,” he said, adding that the farmers sell their watermelons along the roadside in Arnos Vale when there is a lot on the market.
“But what scares me most is the fact that when the police walk in the yard, the amount of lies told as if they were expecting someone to show up with that kind of complaint. There was no surprise on their faces,” he told iWitness News.
Most likely there were other complaints by their reaction.
It’s a coldhearted person to do something like that, and as I eat a lot of watermelon almost daily, thi have thinking otherwise, this is terrible!
I can remember hearing a pastor saying about finding pins in a papaw the he had bought. Ver scary,