A serving Royal Bahamas Defence Force member is currently undergoing formal questioning by criminal investigation detectives, National Security Minister Myles LaRoda confirmed in an official public statement yesterday. The development follows viral social media footage showing an armed man, later verified as the defence force officer, threatening a 27-year-old civilian outside a popular Nassau nightclub in the early hours of Monday morning.
The alleged victim, Alphonique Strachan, recounted that the altercation originated inside 316 Bar and Lounge on Prince Charles Drive, when a male friend of hers danced with the female companion of the man now identified as the defence force service member. As Strachan and her group exited the venue to return to their vehicle, she claims the man stepped out of a nearby jeep brandishing a firearm, and repeatedly threatened to shoot and kill both her and her friend, leaving her in genuine fear for her personal safety. The widely circulated cellphone footage captures the officer holding the weapon while Strachan confronts him for drawing a gun on her, before he stows the firearm back in the jeep and approaches her on foot.
Strachan further alleges that a uniformed on-duty police officer patrolling the surrounding area failed to intervene, allowing the armed defence force member to drive away without any search of his vehicle. She additionally claims that the on-duty officer seized her iPhone immediately after she finished recording the confrontation, and instructed her to retrieve the device from the local police station later. As of Tuesday, the phone had not been returned to her, though she was able to preserve all footage of the incident thanks to automatic cloud syncing that backed the recordings up to her linked iPad.
Strachan stated that she attempted to file a report of the incident at two separate police stations in the hours following the confrontation, arriving at Elizabeth Estates Police Station shortly after the altercation. Staff there informed her the case fell outside their jurisdiction and redirected her to Fox Hill Police Station, where she arrived around 4 a.m. and played the recorded footage for a senior ranking officer. She says the senior officer called the on-duty patrol officer involved in the incident, who described the weapon in the footage as a homemade “pumper” firearm, prompting the senior officer to push back that the clip clearly showed a semi-automatic weapon, and question why the patrol officer had not filed an official incident report. When Strachan asked to submit her own formal statement, she was told the police inquiries department would reach out to her directly, and as of Monday, no law enforcement representative had contacted her to initiate the process. She maintains she submitted a formal complaint to the Police Complaints and Corruption Branch on Tuesday.
However, Minister LaRoda pushed back on that account during his public briefing, noting that while representatives from the Complaints and Corruption Branch have interviewed Strachan on at least two separate occasions, no signed, official formal complaint has been formally logged against the defence force officer as of yet. He confirmed that he had spoken directly with the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Commodore, who verified the individual captured in the viral footage is an active duty service member, and that the officer is currently being interviewed at the Central Detective Unit under the Criminal Investigation Department as part of an active, open investigation.
LaRoda emphasized that while the overwhelming majority of both police and defence force personnel carry out their public safety duties with full adherence to professional codes of conduct, any public servant found to have violated civilian rights or breached official operational guidelines will face full legal consequences. “Let the chips fall where they may,” the minister stated, when asked about the separate allegation that a serving police officer seized Strachan’s cellphone and failed to intervene to detain the armed defence force member after the threat. He declined to confirm whether the firearm drawn on Strachan was an official government-issued service weapon, and did not immediately announce if the defence force officer would be placed on administrative leave during the inquiry, noting that the Commodore, who is himself a trained legal professional, is fully aware of the need to preserve public trust in national security institutions, and that all appropriate administrative actions will be finalized promptly once the investigation reaches its conclusion.
Minister says no complaint as RBDF officer questioned
