标签： Bahamas

A 27-year-old Nassau resident, Alphonique Strachan, has come forward with explosive allegations of police malfeasance following a terrifying early-morning incident outside a popular Prince Charles Drive nightclub that has since spread widely across social media platforms. The sequence of events unfolded shortly after 2 a.m. outside 316 Bar and Lounge, where a seemingly trivial altercation inside the venue spiraled into a life-threatening confrontation. Strachan explained that the conflict ignited when her male friend danced with the girlfriend of a patron, prompting a heated argument between the two men that led Strachan and her companion to exit the club to de-escalate tensions. A uniformed on-duty police officer, who was already posted to patrol the area, was speaking with Strachan’s male friend outside, and advised Strachan to retrieve her vehicle so the pair could leave the scene safely before further conflict erupted. As Strachan walked toward her car, a man she initially believed was an off-duty police officer emerged from a nearby jeep brandishing a firearm, and repeatedly threatened to “blow her head off” as well as the head of her companion. Terrified, Strachan rushed back to the on-duty patrol officer to report the armed threat, but claims the officer’s entire demeanor shifted the moment he approached the jeep and recognized the man holding the weapon. Rather than conducting a lawful search for the firearm or detaining the individual for making death threats, Strachan alleges the officer allowed the armed man to drive away from the scene unchallenged. Worse, she states the on-duty officer seized her iPhone, which she had used to film the entire confrontation, and instructed her to retrieve the device later at a local police station. Within hours of the incident, Strachan attempted to file an official misconduct and threat report at two separate local police stations, only to face systemic delays and jurisdictional confusion. First, officers at the Elizabeth Estates Police Station informed her the case fell outside their purview, and directed her to travel to the Fox Hill Police Station to speak with a senior supervisor and share her recorded evidence. She arrived at Fox Hill around 4 a.m., and played the full footage for the senior officer on duty, but was told no immediate report would be filed, and that representatives from the force’s internal inquiries department would reach out to her directly. As of press time the following day, no law enforcement official had contacted her to follow up on her allegations. Strachan was able to preserve all of her video evidence thanks to automatic iCloud syncing between her iPhone and her personal iPad, which allowed the footage to be saved even after the patrol officer confiscated her phone. She shared several clips of the incident on Facebook, where the footage had been shared more than 1,000 times by local users in less than 24 hours, sparking widespread public concern about police accountability. The viral clips show the armed man, dressed in a white t-shirt, grey shorts, a coin chain and gold dental grills, brandishing his weapon and shouting “I don’t play games” at the scene, while family members believed to be his sister and brother attempt to restrain him and de-escalate the situation. In a formal public statement released by the Royal Bahamas Police Force on the evening after the incident, officials first clarified that the man Strachan initially identified as an off-duty officer is not, in fact, a serving member of the force. The statement also noted that no formal official complaint had been registered related to the incident as of that time, and encouraged any members of the public with information about the confrontation to come forward to file an official report. Notably, the force’s public statement made no reference to Strachan’s specific allegations that the on-duty patrol officer allowed the armed suspect to flee the scene, or that the officer unlawfully seized her personal mobile phone. Strachan recounted that the senior supervisor at the Fox Hill station immediately contacted the rookie on-duty patrol officer involved in the incident, and openly reprimanded him after the patrol officer claimed the weapon the suspect held was a non-lethal “pumper” air gun. The senior supervisor pushed back on that claim, pointing out that the footage clearly showed the suspect holding a semi-automatic firearm, and questioned why the junior officer had failed to file any incident report related to the death threats or the armed confrontation. To date, Strachan has not had her confiscated iPhone returned to her, and told local reporters she is determined to recover her full evidence set to submit to the force’s complaints and corruption unit to pursue full accountability for the alleged misconduct.

Dozens of disillusioned Bahamas Customs personnel gathered for a demonstration outside the department’s headquarters earlier this week, voicing deep-seated anger over years of being consistently passed over for senior promotions, while management fills coveted leadership roles with recently retired veteran staff brought back on short-term contracts.
The Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union has documented 15 retired officers who have been rehired by the agency, 13 of whom currently hold top-tier positions spanning deputy comptroller, assistant comptroller, and superintendent roles, effectively blocking career advancement paths for hundreds of serving staff who have invested decades in the department.
Leading the protest was 38-year customs veteran Superintendent Livingstone Ferguson, who holds an associate degree in public administration, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance, and is on track to earn a law degree from the University of The Bahamas next year. Ferguson emphasized that dozens of his peers hold equivalent or higher advanced qualifications, yet management has repeatedly dismissed their eligibility for upward mobility. “We are deeply disappointed that leadership has decided we are not worthy of growing within the organization, and that we are meant to stay stuck in our current roles indefinitely. Today we are making it clear enough is enough,” he stated.
Ten-year veteran Chief Customs Revenue Officer Kevin McKenzie shared his own experience of receiving two formal supersession notices from Customs Comptroller Ralph Munroe, informing him that less junior staff would be promoted ahead of him. He submitted a formal written request for justification for the decision, but never received a response. McKenzie warned that many of the rehired retired officers would only vacate their senior posts due to death, creating a permanent barrier for younger staff hoping to advance.
20-year veteran Customs Officer Winifred Lynden added that multiple current serving officers who have been overlooked for promotions hold stronger academic and professional credentials than the retired staff being brought back on contract, and it is demoralizing to be placed under the authority of people who left the department years earlier. She also revealed that several currently serving assistant comptrollers have had their core duties, powers and responsibilities stripped entirely to make space for the returning contracted retirees, forcing staff who waited decades for leadership opportunities to step aside.
30-year veteran Chief Customs Officer Alma Poitier-Sands noted that every dedicated, long-serving officer deserves a fair shot at career progression, and that the department’s current hiring practices have left the entire rank and file increasingly burnt out and disillusioned.
Ferguson clarified that the protesting officers do not oppose retired staff returning temporarily to provide mentorship or short-term support for high-priority projects, but strongly object to them occupying permanent senior line roles that fully qualified current staff are fully capable of performing. This practice, he explained, has created a systemic promotion bottleneck across every tier of the department: if 12 assistant comptroller positions are permanently filled by rehired retirees, 12 qualified superintendents are blocked from advancing, which in turn blocks an entire cohort of lower-ranking officers from moving up the career ladder.
He added that staff had repeatedly attempted to resolve these concerns through internal channels before resorting to public demonstration, and are not demanding special treatment — only a fair, transparent process that gives them the opportunity to prove they can lead the department effectively.
Deron Brooks, president of the Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union, confirmed that the union has previously pressured Comptroller Munroe to roll out a formal, equitable succession plan and increase promotion volumes, noting that current promotion rates are wildly disproportionate to the department’s overall headcount. While a small number of promotions have been issued recently, Brooks stated they are far too few and moving at a glacial pace to resolve the systemic backlog.
This long-running dispute first escalated in 2024, when Brooks warned the union was prepared to pursue legal action over the government’s widespread practice of rehiring retired public servants on contract, pointing to a 2021 Supreme Court ruling the union won that deemed the government’s contractual appointment of retired Immigration officers unlawful. At the time, Comptroller Munroe defended the practice, arguing that rehired retired staff brought irreplaceable institutional knowledge and experience that benefited the department.
Bahamas Trades Union Congress President Obie Ferguson has formally thrown his full support behind the protesting customs officers, warning that no public servant should ever be passed over for promotion in favour of candidates selected for partisan political reasons. He emphasized that all public service appointment and promotion protocols are legally binding, and a recent Court of Appeal ruling mandates that these procedures must be followed strictly to the letter of the law. “No administrative opinion overrides the written law, and it must be followed exactly as it is stated,” he affirmed.
Ferguson noted that customs and immigration officers are protected by explicit constitutional rights, employment contracts, and industrial bargaining agreements that the government is legally obligated to uphold, and cited recent favourable court precedents for public sector workers in Jamaica, Barbados and St. Lucia to argue that Bahamian public servants deserve the exact same level of legal protection. He urged the protesting officers to seek broader support from the national trade union movement, noting that this systemic promotion barrier issue threatens the career prospects of public sector workers across every government department, not just Customs.

A former regional leader of a Bahamas-based advocacy group for survivors of murder victims was detained by police following a volatile, expletive-laced public outburst outside Nassau’s Supreme Court last week, moments after a senior judge denied bail for her 26-year-old son facing multiple counts of sexual assault against an 18-year-old woman. Wendy Fox, who previously led the Grand Bahama chapter of Family of All Murdered Victims (FOAM) until her abrupt removal from the organization in August, was escorted to Downtown Police Station by uniformed officers as she continued to vent unbridled frustration over the court’s ruling that barred her son, Romeo Alexander Storr Jr, from pre-trial release. The incident, captured in a widely shared Facebook video, shows Fox pacing near court grounds, repeatedly demanding an explanation for the bail denial, claiming the decision was rooted in unsubstantiated WhatsApp message evidence, and insisting her son could not have communicated with anyone while in pre-trial custody. Throughout the rant, she used coarse, profane language to dismiss the sexual assault allegations against Storr, publicly decrying the Bahamian justice system as corrupt and asserting her son’s innocence without reservation. Senior Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson, in a November 6 written ruling, outlined three core justifications for rejecting Storr’s bail application: the extreme severity of the rape charge that carries a mandatory minimum 15-year prison sentence up to life imprisonment, the lack of unreasonable procedural delays that would justify pre-trial release, and substantial evidence that Storr or parties acting on his behalf had already engaged in witness intimidation. The ruling cited a sworn affidavit from the 18-year-old alleged victim detailing dozens of unwanted phone calls from Storr and his associates, as well as the circulation of a non-consensual video of the incident that left her deeply humiliated and in a state of ongoing fear. Grant-Thompson emphasized that no set of standard bail conditions could mitigate the proven risk that Storr would tamper with prosecution witnesses if released, noting that the gravity of the potential life sentence created a clear flight risk even considering Storr’s local ties to the community, including his two young daughters and his self-employment running a small business selling fresh coconut water and coconut jelly. The judge clarified that the bail hearing was not a venue to adjudicate guilt or determine whether the August 14 alleged sexual encounter was consensual, noting only that there was sufficient evidence to establish reasonable suspicion that the offence occurred, with all disputed facts reserved for a full trial. Court documents show the alleged assault took place in New Providence in the early hours of August 14, after the 18-year-old victim lost consciousness while traveling in a vehicle with a male driver and two other passengers shortly after 4 a.m. She regained consciousness around two hours later, was dropped off at what she was told was her home, and immediately reported the sexual assault to authorities after realizing she had been violated. The case sparked widespread public outcry across the Bahamas after disturbing viral voice notes describing the alleged non-consensual encounter began circulating on social media platforms, prompting a swift escalation of police investigations. Fox’s termination from FOAM was formally announced in August, shortly after she began posting public social media statements defending Storr, the central suspect in the high-profile sexual assault case. The organization’s leadership issued an immediate severance order that revoked all of Fox’s authority to represent FOAM, organize events, or collect donations on the group’s behalf, after previously stating it would defer all matters related to the investigation to local law enforcement. Prior to her public outburst outside the Supreme Court, Fox had been present at Storr’s closed August arraignment, where she was seen crying and urging her son to turn to prayer before he was remanded into custody.

The family of 33-year-old Collingwood Turnquest Jr. is reeling from an unthinkable, sudden tragedy after the young man was discovered deceased on a remote south-western shoreline roughly one mile off Marshall Road last Saturday morning. Turnquest, a hardworking local resident who had been scheduled to meet a group of fellow crew members for a pre-planned fishing excursion that same day, never showed up at their pre-arranged meeting point. Growing increasingly concerned after repeated failed attempts to reach him, his fishing companions launched a targeted search of areas they knew he frequented, where they ultimately located his lifeless body and immediately notified local law enforcement. First responders were dispatched to the scene shortly after 10 a.m., where officers found a white unoccupied van parked near the shoreline alongside Turnquest’s body, which bore an apparent gunshot wound to the face. A shotgun was recovered in close proximity to the remains, and on-site Emergency Medical Services teams conducted a full assessment that confirmed the 33-year-old had no vital signs upon their arrival. Initially, investigating officers tentatively labeled the incident a suspected suicide, but updated their official classification days later to flag the death as suspicious, launching a full open investigation into all surrounding circumstances that have yet to be publicly disclosed. In a raw, heart-wrenching public tribute posted to Facebook, Turnquest’s mother Cleopatra Turnquest shared that her heart is “broken beyond words” in the wake of losing her firstborn child, who she described as a quiet, introverted man who privately carried unspoken personal struggles that he rarely shared with even his closest loved ones. She noted that despite the unshared burdens he carried, Turnquest showed up for his responsibilities every single day, working tirelessly and never letting friends or family suspect that he might be in distress. “If only we had known the weight you were carrying,” she wrote in the emotional post, adding that she never could have imagined she would have to say goodbye to her eldest son at such a young age. Cleopatra emphasized that being the mother of Collingwood Turnquest Jr. was one of the greatest honors of her entire life, as he was the child who first made her a parent. “Oh, my precious son, how I wish I could hold you just one more time, hear your voice, see your smile, and tell you once again how deeply you are loved,” she wrote. “A part of me has gone with you, and life will never be quite the same. Forever my baby. Forever my son. Forever a part of me.” Local police have stated that no additional details about the ongoing suspicious death investigation will be released to the public at this time as forensic teams and detectives continue to piece together the full sequence of events that led to Turnquest’s death.

A devastating accidental drowning on the shores of Guana Cay, Abaco, has left a Bahamian community in mourning, after a young teenager with a pre-existing spinal condition was swept away by a rogue wave while celebrating a relative’s birthday on a Saturday afternoon. The teen, identified by his family as 14-year-old Josiah Miller, a Grade 9 student at Patrick J Bethel High School, had been enjoying a gathering at Dolphin Beach with friends when powerful, unexpected currents pulled him out into open water, local law enforcement confirmed. According to accounts shared by Lathario Miller, the teen’s father who resides on Long Island, Josiah’s older sister did not hesitate to plunge into the surf in a desperate bid to pull her younger sibling to safety, but arrived too late to stop the tragedy unfolding. Miller told The Tribune in a raw, emotional interview that he had spoken to his son just the day before the incident, hearing his voice over the phone on Friday, only to receive a frantic call from his daughter hours later delivering the unthinkable news of Josiah’s disappearance. He shared that Josiah lived with his mother in Abaco, and had long been advised by medical professionals to avoid open water swimming due to a diagnosis of scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that put him at heightened risk in rough aquatic conditions. Police records initially listed the teen’s age as 15, but his father confirmed he had not yet turned 15, and was enrolled in the 9B homeroom at his local high school. First responders launched an urgent wide-scale search immediately after receiving the distress call at 3:30pm on Saturday, deploying uniformed officers, Hope Town Fire & Rescue teams, and a fleet of local private boaters to comb the waters surrounding Dolphin Beach. Two hours into the search, a police aerial drone spotted Josiah unresponsive floating in the surf, and recovery teams pulled him back to shore. Emergency medical staff stationed on Guana Cay administered life-saving CPR for an extended period, but were unable to detect any signs of vital function. The teen was then transported to the Marsh Harbour Healthcare Centre, where an attending physician officially pronounced his death just before 7pm that same evening. Josiah’s peers and school administrators remembered him as a gentle, well-mannered, affectionate adolescent with a bright, promising future ahead of him. In an official public statement, leadership at Patrick J Bethel High School extended their deepest sympathies to the grieving Miller family, Josiah’s circle of close friends, and his entire Grade 9B class, who are now navigating the trauma of losing a beloved classmate. The incident marks the second tragic water-related fatality for the Abaco-based high school community in less than a year: back in June, 10th-grade student Kyron Curry lost his life after falling overboard from a recreational vessel near Green Turtle Cay, in an incident police later confirmed was being operated by a 12-year-old at the time of the accident. As of press time, Lathario Miller noted that he still had not received a full, detailed account of the sequence of events from Josiah’s mother, and that many specific details of the afternoon’s gathering remained unconfirmed.