Police have been accused of unprovoked brutality against two Jamaican nationals and forcing their way into a private residence without a search warrant in an operation over the weekend.

As part of an ongoing investigation into last week's Friswell's Hill shooting, armed Police officers showed up at a South Terrace home in the early evening hours Saturday looking for Jamaican Rohan Clarke.

"Me and my girlfriend were sitting in the house. All I heard was 'get down, get down on your knees'," said Mr. Clarke's wife Sharise Cann Clarke who is Bermudian.

"They took my screen slide door off and threw it on the ground,"

"Thank God my son wasn't home," she said. "They could have knocked but they just barged in, they came in like mad people. I just think it's ridiculous, I didn't fight with them - I let them do their job, I let them in my house. I know I didn't do anything illegal and the result was negative, they didn't find nothing in my house."

When the officers entered, they repeated the order to get down on the ground and produced a search warrant with Mr. Clarke's name on it.

Mrs. Clarke then heard another group of officers breaking down the door of the next door apartment where her landlord Jay Chin, who was not home at the time, lived.

"I told them that they didn't need to go next door, if they were looking for Rohan. One of the cops said as long as they had a search warrant for 15 South Terrace they could search all three apartments."

After searching the Clarke residence with the help of a dog, Mr. Clarke arrived with his brother Dwight who had just arrived on the Island a day earlier. The two men were ambushed by a number of officers as they drove down a steep incline on a motorcycle.

The two brothers estimated that there were about two dozen officers. The still moving bike was rushed and kicked to the ground, bringing both men to the road.

"All they had to do was wait until we parked the bike," said Dwight Clarke.

Officers then started kicking the men on the body, face, head and back, put a gun to their heads and handcuffed them, the brothers said. Rohan was left with visible injuries around his hip area and left leg.

Dwight complained of pain in the sides when urinating, when this newspaper went to visit the homes last night.

Describing his experience at the hands of the Police, Mr. Clarke said : "It was like 25 Police. They kicked me off my bike put a gun to my face... These guys kicked me off the bike, threw me on the ground and put a gun to my head.

"One stepped on my head, one on the back and they started kicking me."

Police found no evidence of wrongdoing in the apartment but the pair were arrested and taken to Hamilton Police Station and ordered to appear in court on December 23.

At the station, Rohan Clarke said, he was told by a white Police officer : "You p***yhole Jamaicans come here to give a lot of trouble."

Mr. Clarke said : "The first time I saw a gun in Bermuda was last night - with the Police."

According to Mrs. Clarke and her sister-in-law, Janice Clarke, one of the Police officers came into the house to apologise before the men were taken away.

"He came in here and said 'I don't have anything against Jamaicans and I'm sorry for what happened. And I can see these guys are two hardworking guys'."

"They say I came in here as a sniper to shoot somebody and I don't know anything about that," protested Dwight Clarke.

"I never tief any man before. I never kill anyone and I never cut anyone - nothing like that," he added. His bail form states that he was arrested on suspicion of possessing a firearm.

"He's a tourist," said his sister Janice Clarke. "I never seen a tourist treated like that before."

The brother's troubles started on Friday night just hours after Dwight had arrived on a flight from New York to visit his brother.

Police stopped them and a cousin in the early hours of Saturday morning on the way home from Ambassadors nightclub and found a machete in the trunk which belonged to the cousin who works as a landscaper, the brothers said. They were taken to the station, questioned and released three hours later.

Mrs. Clarke said that she is still "rattled" from Saturday night. "All last night I couldn't even speak and that's not right." She has already contacted the Jamaican consul who advised a formal letter of complaint to the Police Commissioner.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chin is also about to file a formal complaint. He arrived at his Friswell's Hill home to be greeted by 15 to 16 officers and to find his screen door ripped off its hinges and glass all over his living room.

The officers had rammed their way into the apartment, totally destroying the door, he said. Inspector Stuart Crockwell, who led the operation, told him that his officers weren't sure which apartment in the complex was the right one.

"But if you are confused, how did you go to the right one first" where it was confirmed that the man they were looking for lived there and then end up in another apartment, he wanted to know. "I was furious so I kept my mouth shut because I knew I was going to totally explode. I just kept calm and waited for them to vacate the premises."

The Police apologised and arranged to have a large board sent to the apartment to block the gaping entranceway, promising to have the door fixed today.

Mr. Chin said that the Police should have arranged for him to stay somewhere else until they fix the damage done to his house, which also includes tiny glass shards in his carpet.

"We are inviting the parties who feel they have been mistreated to make a formal complaint," said Police spokesperson Dwayne Caines when asked to respond to the allegations of brutality.

"As of 7 p.m. we have not received any complaint."

And he confirmed that a glass company will be fixing Mr. Chin's door today and that enquiries into that incident were underway.