PLG Officer's Body Found In Guyana, Police Say

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — A Prospect Lefferts Gardens police officer with almost two decades on the force lost his life during a vacation in Guyana this week, according to he NYPD.

"Officer Gladstone Haynes was a good, humble man who protected New Yorkers for nearly 18 years," Brooklyn's 70th precinct tweeted Wednesday. "May he Rest In Peace and may God bless the Haynes family."

Haynes' disappeared while swimming near Orinduik Falls last Sunday and, although his family maintained hope he'd survived, his body was found Wednesday, according to police and multiple reports.

Haynes and the mother of his children Vanessa Alicia Vassell — who was celebrating her 34th birthday — were touring Guyana with a group of tourists when the Brooklyn officer decided to swim in the falls, according to a Stabroek News report.

The water was high and Haynes went under and disappeared, according to the report.

“They found him today, this morning,” Haynes' brother, Marcellus Lam, told the Daily News on Wednesday. “I was hoping he was still alive.”

Haynes was originally from Guyana, where his father's service in the police inspired him to join the NYPD nearly 20 years ago, spending most of his time with the 70th Precinct in Flatbush, according to the Daily News.

When the distraught brother was told the news, he said that “I wanted to cry and I had to sit,” he told the Daily News, “I couldn’t move. I was praying, hoping he was still alive.”

Haynes' five children, all aged between two and 15-years-old, have learned about their father's fate, according to the report.

“They’re all young, they were told what happened,” Lam said to the Daily News. “How they’re taking it, I don’t know."