By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

A POLICE officer has been brought before the Royal Bahamas Police Force Tribunal over a viral video that shows a half-naked Caucasian woman defecating on the floor of a station, with other officers possibly facing discipline as the investigation widens.

Commissioner of Police Shanta Knowles said: “We expect that officers will ensure that the rights of people in our custody and care are not trampled on.”

Announcing the update on the investigation into the shocking video, which caused widespread outrage, Commissioner Knowles said on Friday: “One officer is before the Tribunal or is expected to go before the Tribunal for arraignment.Once the Complaints and Corruption Branch is finished, then we will know if more officers will in fact go before the Tribunal.”

She stressed that officers are bound by a social media policy and risk charges if they breach it.

“We don’t encourage that kind of behaviour of what we may have seen or what we’ve seen on those videos,” she said. 

The commissioner’s remarks followed public outrage after the video circulated online. The woman, visibly distressed, claimed she had been denied access to a restroom and is seen repeatedly pleading to use one before relieving herself on the station floor.

Off-camera voices, believed to be police officers, are heard mocking and taunting her.

“I told you I had to go to the bathroom,” she says in the clip. At one point, she uses racial slurs, while officers accuse her of being high on cocaine. One tells her to “stay out the coke house.”

Many viewers condemned the officers’ behaviour as degrading and inhumane. The video appeared to have been shot on a personal device, not an official body camera.