Every so often, you come across a story which reminds you of that old time turn of phrase, many an admonishing Bahamian grandma would say, when you were caught doing something utterly, and inexplicably stupid. Gram would say “boy you must be smell yourself”.
In 1992, a joint operation between Bahamian police, the DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) and law enforcement officers in Orlando, Florida, foiled a horrible and dastardly plot to kill then Bahamian Police Chief Bernard K. Bonamy. Incredibly the men charged were Bahamian police officers! Why would serving police officers want to kill their chief of police? Apparently, this and other planned nonsense, was all to create a distraction so that they could steal cocaine for the government evidence locker.
Bahamas Murder Plot Is Charged.
2 Bahamians officers charged with trying to run guns from Orlando are linked to a plot to kill their police chief.
One of two Bahamian policeman arrested in Orlando on weapons smuggling violations was charged Wednesday in a plot to kill the head of the islands’ police force and steal confiscated cocaine from a government warehouse.
Keith Burton Patton, 33, had been charged March 27, with trying to ship six submachine guns and six silencers in Tide Detergent boxes on a flight from Orlando to Nassau, Bahamas. He was freed last Friday on $100,000 bail and returned to the Bahamas, where he was charged in the murder-drug plot.
Bahamian police said several veteran officers were involved in the plot to kill Royal Bahamas police commissioner Bernard K. Bonamy and set fire to a police building — all to create a diversion so they could loot cocaine from a police warehouse. Investigators said the weapons seized at Orlando airport were among those to be used in the crimes.
“Their goal was to rip off the drug warehouse,” said a source in the Bahamas close to the investigation who insisted on anonymity. It appears they were going to set up a series of diversions to draw manpower from the warehouse. It was an incredibly stupid scheme.”
Two others charged were Henry Brice and Stephen Stubbs, were constables assigned to the internal security division.
(The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Florida) 9th April 1992)
