Published On:Monday, October 19, 2009

ONE of nine tourists threatened and robbed by armed thugs in downtown Nassau last night attacked the way in which local police handled the matter.

After experiencing the trauma and disbelief of being held up at gunpoint and having valuable personal items stolen, Kelly Greer claimed police behaved like they were in a "Police Academy comedy movie".

"It was unreal," said Ms Greer, of Fort Myers, Florida.

"The police seemed like they genuinely wanted to catch them but it was just a joke compared to anything I've ever seen in States. It was crazy."

Ms Greer, who was on vacation with her sister and mother, who both work in law enforcement in the US, said not only did she feel police took too long to get to the scene, they also made no immediate attempt to catch the men, and at first left the tourists in fear that they were about to get held-up again - this time by a man who turned out to be a plainclothes police officer.

She and her relatives were part of a group of nine, who, along with their tour guide, were standing on the Queen's Staircase on the morning of Sunday, October 11. Having left their Carnival "Glory" cruise ship that morning, they wanted to see the sights.

However, moments after ascending the steps they were approached by two men who took their cash and jewellery while threatening them with a gun. According to the tourist, after the robbery occurred and police were called, an unmarked car attended the scene - which they later discovered to be a police car.

A man emerged wearing "a wife beater (vest), cargo shorts, flip flops and aviators, holding what looked like a hunting rifle."

The man did exactly as their assailants had done - walking behind them with the gun without saying a word or identifying himself as a police officer, claimed Ms Greer.

"I was legitimately scared when he pulled up. I thought 'Oh my god, is this gonna happen again."

Luckily, a uniformed officer appeared on the scene moments later and made it known that the shotgun-toting man was a plain clothes officer.

"It was so odd," said Ms Greer. "He never said anything to us."

The visitor, who had cash and jewellery taken from her by the two men, who appeared to be in their twenties and were not masked - except for a white handkerchief one held to his face - said she was shocked when officers made no immediate attempt to determine where the men may have fled to.

"No one made an attempt to go after them. I just thought it was so strange," said Ms Greer.

This was just one of several "mind blowing" moments for the tourist, her relatives, and the rest of their tour group.

Upon being transported to a local station, believed to be Central Police station on East Street, the woman told of how the group were being addressed by an officer in an office at the station when a woman snuck into the room and started dialling a number using the office phone.

Moments later, the officer saw her and began shouting angrily to another officer to "get her back in the cell" - giving the group the impression the woman was supposed to have been in custody at the time but had escaped.

"It was chaotic, just unbelievable," said the 29-year-old.

And although her sister had managed to hide a camera on which she realised she had a photograph of one of the two men during the robbery, police at the station did not have the basic equipment to extract the image from the camera. This resulted in Ms Greer and her sister having to take a 45-minute trip to another station where they were able to obtain the image for police records.

They were then shown what the tourist described as "grainy, xerox photocopies of mug shots of different people" and asked if they could pin point any of them as their assailants.

However, Ms Greer claimed the quality of the images was so poor that the exercise was of no use at all. "You couldn't see any detail," she claimed.

She said she felt like officers were asking the group "leading questions" about the images, almost asking her to identify the people in the photos as the thieves.

"I didn't think they would lead us on so much. They were saying stuff like, 'Don't you think he looks a little bit like that guy right there? You're pretty much saying you want me to say it's that guy," said Ms Greer.

While she said she does not believe their victimisation by the thieves is representative of most tourist's experience in The Bahamas and could have been simply a matter of being "in the wrong place at the wrong time" the ordeal and their subsequent experience with the police left she and her relatives "exhausted."

"They said to us that if the case goes to trial we'll be invited back at the government's expense to attend, but my sister said 'Count me out!'," said the visitor.