<<< Kerzner’s picturesque town called Marina Village on Paradise Island. The shooting incident last evening has left a police officer in intensive care and a security guard nursing wounds.
Nassau, Bahamas – While police to this hour have not made a single statement on the shooting at Marina Village last night and while the minister of national security was playing basketball in a Grand Bahama gym, your Bahamas Press was the ONLY news agency on the ground witnessing the horror experienced by guests and locals in the village. A shooting incident left guests scream in running into shop on Paradise Island following what we now know to have been a chaotic Halloween night. The shooting now has a police officer in the Intensive Care Unit at the Princess Margaret Hospital and left guest and locals visibly shaken and emotional following the mayhem.
Our ‘deep throat’ on the Royal Bahamas Police Force now tell us reserve sergeant, Dwayne DeCosta, was shot in the head during the daring robbery at Marina Village last night.
Doctors now stationed at the bedside of the wounded officer tell BP DeCosta is now fighting for his life and his condition listed as serious.
Around 10 pm gunshot rung out at the entrance at the Marina Village office, leaving DeCosta lying on the ground suffering from wounds inflicted by the robber. Meanwhile another security officer station at the village was also shot by the robbers. Our deep throat now tell us several suspects are still on the run, however, no official word has yet come from the PR division of the RBPF.
However not to worry, your Bahamas Press is also in pursuit of the culprits in this latest shooting crime.
I TELL YOU WE SOON NEED PASSPORT AND POLICE RECORD TO GO TO PARADISE ISLAND, WE HARDLY HAVE ACCESS THERE NOW IT WILL BE WORST NOW….
Paradise Island shooting
By KRYSTEL ROLLE ~ Guardian Staff Reporter ~ krystel@nasguard.com:
Shock rippled through the small Paradise Island community after two security officers were riddled with bullets – at point blank range – near the Marina Village in the heart of the Atlantis Resort on Halloween night.
Amazingly, the Paradise Island security officers are still alive, but up to press time last night remained in serious condition in hospital.
Within minutes of the shooting, police officers
“locked down” the island — screening everyone entering and leaving.
According to Superintendent Elsworth Moss, who heads the Central Detective Unit, police apprehended one of the two suspects shortly after the shooting and the other turned himself in around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.
The teen suspects (ages 19 and 17) are expected to be charged later this week after police wrap up their investigations.
The incident, which occurred around 9:30 p.m. that day sent shock waves throughout the island, which rarely records acts of violence.
According to police reports one of the victims, Dwayne Decosta, 46, was shot multiple times to the face, chest and arm while Troy Feast, 33, was shot to the right shoulder.
“Information is that shortly before [the security guards were shot] they observed two suspicious-looking young men in the area of the Marina Village,” Supt. Moss reported.
“They approached these young men and while speaking to them, one of them removed a handgun from his pocket and shot them,” Moss added.
Police believe that the teens might have been looking for an opportunity to rob someone in the area, which is often frequented by wealthy yacht owners.
Meantime, Atlantis officials reportedly went into damage control mode following the near-fatal shooting of the security officers.
When The Nassau Guardian arrived at the scene around 10:50 p.m. on Saturday, the area had already been cleaned up. In fact, The Marina Village remained open and restaurant customers were in the various places continuing their meals.
An eyewitness told The Guardian yesterday that he witnessed the collapse of one of the injured security officers.
“He appeared as if he were panicked. He was running and collapsed in front of Johnny Rockets (Restaurant). That’s where I saw him. His shirt was bloody and he was having trouble breathing.”
The witness said crowds of people, tourists and natives, gathered around the man.
“We didn’t really know what had happened until after.”
He said that he never saw the other security officer.
The witness added that while he heard the gunshots, he didn’t believe that it was gunshots.
“I thought it must [have been] fireworks. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that someone had been shot. I mean it’s not like we were in the ghetto somewhere. This is Paradise Island. This is Atlantis. No one is shot here. It’s shocking to say the least,” he said.
Superintendent Moss said the shooting occurred away from the restaurants in Marina Village.
“What we’re thankful for is that it wasn’t in the area where the tourists were. It was in the back of restaurants. So I don’t think anyone would have been traumatized by it. I don’t think those persons in that area would have known what was happening. They just would have heard [gunshots] and later when they saw all of the officers they may have guessed,” he said.
In a statement yesterday, Atlantis Senior VP of Public Affairs Ed Fields reported that “no hotel guests or staff were exposed to any harm during this isolated incident.”
“Our prayers and thoughts are with the officers and their families,” the statement said.
This is the latest reported act of violence recorded on Paradise Island since 16-year-old Khodee Davis was stabbed to death in May 2008.
Davis was killed during an altercation between two groups of young males at Cabbage Beach on the Whit Monday holiday. He was stabbed in the heart.
His bloodstained body was left lying in the middle of the road, where crowds of tourists gathered.
Shortly after that incident, Assistant Superintendent of Police Joseph Feaste, officer in charge of Paradise Island police station, told The Guardian that acts of violence were an extremely rare occurrence on that island.
“As a tourist destination, we do all we can to ensure that our number one industry is protected. We try to do as best as we can,” Feaste added.
Monday November 2, 2009
big time politicians,having a good time and enjoying their life with the people’s money and the poor citizen struggling to survive and besides all the crime is sky rocket…Congrats big guys you are all doing a wonderful job with these country….congrats keep it up… soon we’ll be in the street with no job and no food
Another embarrassing blow to the country. These stupid people just don’t care about how they are running the image of the country into the ground and they certainly don’t care about how they are making life hard for everybody else. They are a bunch of selfish morons, who only thinks about their stupid selves. We can’t even catch our breath for a moment. Right now, we are already trying to cope with all the negative press from the extortion trial where a former Senator was involved and then we have a Blabbermouth who is an MP getting off with only a tip on the wrist after costing a mistrial in the highly publicize case where people around the world was watching for the outcome, now this latest shooting. What is next? Something drastic needs to be done to these criminals, before they ruining this great and beautiful country for good.
so sad, such a beautiful country and nobody cares…where are the politicians? what are they doing for us?. shame on all of you. Getting money from people and nobody is doing their job.. be careful the economic is bad as it is and with all of these good news i am sure will be less people coming to the bahamas…we are going to eat s$$&
There is nothing daring about these idiots with loud mouths and guns – they are scum that don’t even deserve the rope – the rack would be more suiting and then the public hanging. The country wouldrejoice at the elimination of these thugs which should have been aborted pre birth.
One of the issues that isnt talked about much is the prevalence of illegal fire arms for such a small country. there really needs to be a crack down.
Tommy Turmquest should look into an amnesty period where prople would turn in their illegal fire arms or a cash for guns program to aid in getting fire arms off the street because its these guns that end up in the hands of criminals who have a itchy trigger finger.
Fire arms move through this country as freely as drugs and Chinese migrants but you never hear of the police catching arms dealers or cracking down on the sale of illegal fire arms.
Anyone can go over the hill right now and “rent” a gun no questions asked!
Most of the murders committed are done by fire arms and these guns have to be coming in from somewhere so if there is a drug unit in the RBPF then there needs to be a fire arms unit as well. these guns are entering this country and it has to be stopped or slowed.
OMG, what the hell is going on in this country?? This is so sad, just sad.
BP only you guys work on the weekend. You should know that. They’ll be scrambling later this evening to knock up spome catchy headline for tomorrow’s publication.
Maybe they’re getting the scoop from you – lol.
I don’t claim to have the answer to this growing dilemma but we need to take some aggressive action or an ailing industry and society will be damaged beyond repair.
Its amazing more than 12 hours later and not a DAMN word from the WUTLESS media in the country on this story. We wonder what they cooking up in their pot to sell to the Bahamian people on this. OH my we can wait to see.
Bahamas Press/Editor
very sad.
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