CAY BAY, Sint Maarten — Three weeks after he says police officers beat him so severely that both of his cheekbones were fractured, 42-year-old Malcolm Toussaint is still recovering from his injuries while waiting for his complaint to be properly recorded.
Although Toussaint says he provided a detective from the National Detective Agency (Landsrecherche) with a detailed account of the alleged assault, he has not received a copy of his statement or any written record of his allegations. Instead, on July 21, 2026, he was given a document confirming only that a complaint had been filed, without any description of what he says occurred during the encounter in Cay Bay on the night of Friday, July 17.
For Toussaint, the incident came only months after another devastating loss.
Now a resident of Antigua, he returned to St. Maarten earlier this year to bury his 24-year-old son, who was found dead at the family home where he had been living. The funeral took place in April, and his son was laid to rest at the Cul de Sac Cemetery.
Toussaint moved to St. Maarten with his mother and sister when he was a young child. The siblings attended school on the island and spent their formative years here. After their mother died, they were raised by an aunt until her passing years later. By then, Toussaint was in his late twenties and the father of a young son. He eventually relocated to Antigua to build a life there, while his sister remained on St. Maarten.
Following his son’s funeral, Toussaint was not ready to leave the island immediately. A resident of Cay Bay offered him a place to stay while he processed his grief before returning to Antigua.
He says he has struggled to come to terms with his son’s death. Authorities informed him that his son had died of natural causes, but Toussaint questions that conclusion because, he says, no autopsy was performed and no definitive cause of death was established. He also says his son was found with foam around his mouth.
His sister fears the events of July 17 have compounded the emotional trauma he was already carrying.
“My brother is a very quiet person,” she told 721 News. “He keeps everything inside. I’m afraid that after suffering these injuries from what he says police did to him, he will close himself off again and disappear from our lives like before. I just got my brother back after losing so much, and now this has happened.”
‘I didn’t know who was chasing me’
According to Toussaint, the incident began at around 1:00 a.m.
He had left the house where he was staying on Aaron Drive hours earlier to meet several friends. The group spent the evening talking outside and had just decided to call it a night when a vehicle suddenly drove toward them.
“We were about to go home when a car came straight at us,” Toussaint recalled. “There were no flashing lights, no sirens, nothing to indicate it was police. It stopped suddenly, the doors opened, and I started running.”
Asked why he fled, Toussaint said fear—not guilt—prompted his reaction.
“I didn’t know who they were,” he said. “I know Cay Bay. Things happen there. When a car drives at you late at night without lights or sirens, you run.”
He said several men immediately chased him through the neighborhood until he reached a dead-end alley. “There was nowhere left to go.” According to Toussaint, one of the men shouted, “Why are you running?”
“I was about to explain that I ran because I was scared,” he said. “But before I could answer, they started hitting me with a baton.” Only then, he says, did he realize the men were police officers.
‘They just kept beating me’
Toussaint alleges that several officers continued striking him until he fell to the ground. “Once I was down, they started kicking me,” he said. “They kicked me in my ribs, my side and my face.”
He says the officers were wearing boots with reinforced metal toe caps similar to safety boots.
Toussaint maintains that at no point during the encounter did officers attempt to identify him or explain why he was being stopped. “They never asked my name. They never asked for identification. They didn’t tell me I was under arrest. They didn’t question me about anything. They just kept beating and kicking me.”
Toussaint estimates that at least four officers assaulted him, although he believes more officers were present. “They all looked young,” he said.
He alleges the officers then walked away, leaving him injured in a roadside ditch. “My nose was bleeding. My face hurt like crazy. I couldn’t believe they just left me there.”
Broken cheekbones
Friends who had seen him running eventually found him and transported him to the St. Maarten Medical Center. Hospital staff performed X-rays which, according to Toussaint, revealed fractures to both cheekbones as well as bruising to his ribs. He says he was given a CD containing the X-ray images.
Without local health insurance, Toussaint said he was discharged after spending the night in hospital. He was prescribed pain medication, advised to seek further medical treatment elsewhere and presented with a bill of nearly NAf. 3,200.
The physical recovery, he says, has been slow and painful. “For days I could hardly eat or drink,” he said. “Even when I tried eating soft food, I could hear the bones near my ear grinding together.”
Three weeks later, he says, the pain remains constant. “I still can’t sleep on my right side.”
Seeking accountability, Toussaint reported the incident to the St. Maarten Police Force (KPSM). He says officers referred him to the National Detective Agency (Landsrecherche), the independent body responsible for investigating alleged criminal offences involving police officers.
According to Toussaint, he later gave investigators a detailed statement describing the incident. However, he says he has never received a written copy of that statement. Instead, he was handed a document confirming only that a complaint had been filed. The document contains no description of his allegations, no summary of his statement and no account of the events he reported.
Three weeks after the alleged assault, Toussaint says he remains uncertain about the status of the investigation while continuing to recover from injuries that have left him unable to sleep comfortably, caused persistent facial pain and made eating difficult. He is also still coping with the emotional impact of losing his son only months before the alleged assault.
721news EDITOR NOTE:
Malcolm Toussaint’s rights as a victim to receive a copy of his complaint have been violated. As a victim, he is entitled to a copy of the statement he signed when pressing charges against his abusers. It is clear that the police are once again avoiding the creation of official evidence that charges have been pressed against them.
The Attorney General (Procureur-Generaal / PG) office and the Sint Maarten Prosecutor’s Office in Sint Maarten must investigate this matter. The victim is being forced to seek financial assistance to cover his medical bills and to obtain legal representation, as trust in the investigating body in Sint Maarten has once again been lost.
One option is to call in the National Detective Agency (Landsrecherche) from Curaçao or Aruba to conduct the investigation, in order to avoid any possibility of a cover-up. The Minister of Justice, as representative of the Government of Sint Maarten, must intervene to ensure that the rights of this victim—who is a visitor—are not further violated.
