THE viral video that circulated yesterday of an encounter in a Bahamian police station between officers and a woman who had been detained really is a case of everyone being in the wrong.

Let us start with the woman. We do not know what she may have been detained for – we do know she has been released.

In the video, we see her asking to go to the bathroom, and when her request is not accommodated, she defecates on the floor of the police station.

Her behaviour towards officers is abominable, however – racially abusing them repeatedly during the video. In many other jurisdictions, she could well have faced charges for the racist insults she uses.

But that does not excuse the behaviour of the officers. They too are in the wrong – and more so because they should have a duty of care for all detainees in their custody.

The woman’s demand to use a bathroom is not an outrageous one. Prisoners should have commonplace access to bathroom facilities. It is a very basic human right to expect to be given access to a bathroom when needed if in custody.

Then there is the fact that someone in the station thought this was all worthy of recording.

This was not a body camera video, as confirmed by National Security Minister Wayne Munroe. This was someone who presumably thought this was funny and took out their cellphone to record the incident. Perhaps they thought this would be something fun to share with their friends. Maybe their colleagues.

Every part of the action of the officers in that situation – regardless of the provocation that came from the racist behaviour of the detainee – is reprehensible.

Frankly, they should be fired. The force does not need people who make sport of prisoners, and who fail to accommodate basic human needs.

Everything about this video and the behaviour it shows is less than professional, and not one officer dignifies the uniform whose standards they are supposed to uphold.

It should be a simple matter to deal with this.

The woman has been released, we are told, so the police force knows who she is. They should be able to identify from that what station she was at and which officers were on duty while she was there. Then it should be a relatively simple matter to identify those on the video from those working at the time.

We are told a probe has been launched, a misconduct investigation. It really should not take long.

We will see how long such a probe takes – but it is a reminder of the call we make frequently in this column that in addition to the body cameras worn by officers that there should be video footage from within each station, and that should be available for inspection not just in cases like this but in the many, many instances where prisoners tell the court they have been beaten in custody.

Police cruelty, as in this instance, and brutality, as in those beatings, must not be tolerated, and must not be given the opportunity to flourish.

There was no excuse for the racist insults directed at officers by this woman – but we should absolutely have no tolerance for the behaviour directed at her by police.

We sincerely hope the police will keep us well informed of the outcome of this. Rest assured, if they do not, we will be sure to ask.