“Head of communications at the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Denis Brooks confirmed the arrest and charge with World Music Views.
“We can confirm that 21 year old recording artist Kevaun Douglas o/c “Skeng” was removed from a flight at the Norman Manley International Airport at about 1:50pm this afternoon. Our information is that this happened after he started behaving disorderly during an argument,” he said.
He said Skeng was charged for Disorderly Behavior and Resisting Arrest. He was offered bail and is to appear before the court on June 21, 2022.
It is understood that the argument developed with him and a member of the Port Security just before he was to board his flight.
Attorney representing the London artist, Christopher Townsend, told World Music Views, “It was a simple thing that got outta hand. What happened from the information that I received, the artist had checked all the way to the gate, there was an item that could not go in his luggage on the plane, his hand luggage, he was asked to remove it in compliance with the rules and regulations that govern international flights.”
He continued, “after that there was a rude comment from the security officer, not the police. Skeng responded to say ‘that was rude, he never needed to do that’.
Townsend further explained that the matter was an abuse of power on the part of the airport security and that his client was who was abused and ‘felt threatened’.
“Clearly there was an abuse of power, he(Skeng) felt threatened. Here you have security officers in authority and dealing with you in a particular way so he felt threatened, in Jamaica we have a deficit in customer service. The security officer in an attempt to subdue him sprayed him with pepper spray.”
He admitted that his client may have been in an elevated state but it was because of the pepper spray which caused him to panic.
“It escalated, when the police came and saw what appears to be an unruly passenger, when you are pepper sprayed you are gonna panic, he started to panic and lash out a little bit, The police took him to a safe area at the police station and the flight left him.”
Skeng is scheduled to headline the Revival Return OF Dancehall event in Trinidad on May 28. Townsend said he is doing everything in his power to ensure his client is on the next flight for the event.
“We are hoping for him to be on the next flight out, we are putting everything in place to make that happen,” he said.
On whether or not the matter constitutes a serious offense against the artist, Townsend also stated, “I do not anticipate that this will affect him traveling, the offenses he is charged with are not finger printable, and are petty sessions, from the conversations with the police they are petty session offenses and don’t carry a jail time.”
All three persons, including one woman, were given bail on their own surety.
Townsend further remarked, “Skeng is an excellent artist, extremely talented, from what I know that is in the pipeline he is going to go very far.”
The Spanish Town DJ’s top song Protocol with Tommy Lee set a new record for most streamed song in Jamaica across all official YouTube platforms recently.
The song peaked at No. 1 on The World Music Views YouTube Charts and has so far spent 27 weeks on the YouTube weekly chart. In Jamaica alone the TrueEyez directed music video has racked up 11,251,088 streams on YouTube. Globally the music video has 26,288,000 views.
The previous YouTube streaming record was set by Koffee with Lockdown, which is now the second most streamed song in the island, with a total of 10,447,224 local streams.
