On Wednesday, the Bahamas’ legislature was forced to suspend its session after a passionate debate about a police corruption scandal intensified as one opposition lawmaker grabbed the symbolic parliamentary mace and threw it out the window.
The parliament member in question, Shanendon Cartwright, had allegedly grown frustrated after Speaker Patricia Deveaux did not allow him speak. She was afterwards, seen (according to several reports) rushing up where she was seated, grabbing the parliamentary mace –a heavy ceremonial staff– from the bench, and then throwing it out a nearby window.
A government broadcast media which recorded the entire incident saw Deveaux yelling “Get him!”
He, along with several ally lawmakers, were forced out of the building by police officials.
What This Means
This latest incident in the Bahamas is reminiscent of a similar one that occurred in 1965, when the leader of the opposition threw the mace out of a window in a push for political change. That event eventually became known today as “Black Tuesday” in the country.
Back to the present however, this incident had come after U.S. federal prosecutors charged several high-ranking Bahamian police officials with assisting the flow of cocaine into the U.S. in exchange for bribes.
Prime Minister Philip Davis who released a statement during the session on Wednesday revealed that the police commissioner had stepped down, and was from here on out, promising a complete overhaul of the force to weed out corruption.
Dozens of protesters who gathered outside the parliament were seen, shouting “Police are criminals!”
