The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

TWO Royal Bahamas Police Force officers were fired on Monday after they were convicted of stealing nearly $22,000 from a man during a traffic stop in Grand Bahama on Saturday.

According to sources, the officers, both constables, pulled over a car around 9am on Saturday driven by a Haitian man. In the back seat were two other Haitians believed to be here illegally. Sources said the driver offered the officers several hundred dollars not to take them in and the officers allegedly accepted the money and let the men go.

A short while later, after the officers returned to the police station, they discovered there was a warrant out for the driver’s arrest, sources said.

It is claimed that the officers went back out and arrested the driver. One of the officers drove the patrol car with the suspect, while the other drove the suspect’s car to the station. Once at the station, the officers discovered that the arrest warrant was satisfied and let the man go, sources said.

When the man returned to his vehicle, The Tribune understands, he noticed that $20,000 was missing from a bag in the back seat. The man claimed to have over $100,000 in the vehicle.

He went back into the station and filed a complaint. Later that day, the man’s daughter also called the police station claimed that the two officers stole $20,000 from her father. It is unclear why the man in question had so much cash in his car.

The officers were called in for questioning and one of them admitted that they took the money and returned $10,000. Police searched the residence of the other officer and discovered $11,900 that was allegedly stolen from the victim.

Both officers were taken into custody and flown to the capital on Sunday.

The men appeared before the RBPF’s Court of Inquiry Tribunal where they were convicted and subsequently discharged from the police force.

Head of the Central Detective Unit, Chief Superintendent Clayton Fernander confirmed that the two officers were terminated from the police force but could not give an update on the investigation.

In January, Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade revealed that 14 officers were discharged from the RBPF in 2015, a number of whom “went before the courts charged for criminal offences.”

Commissioner Greenslade also said that many of the officers charged for criminal matters were “of bad disposition and bad behaviour before they committed the offence.”