bus passengers beaten and thrown off bus at high speeds

[rory 0]

February 14, 2005 – 09:45

Brutal Attacks on Jitney Passengers Prompt Calls To Reform Unsafe Bus System Passengers assaulted and thrown off bus traveling at high speed.

 

An urgent appeal to reform the country's unsafe public transportation system went out yesterday after three people were assaulted on a jitney and thrown from the vehicle while it moved at high speed.

 

The passengers were attacked and brutally beaten before being tossed of the bus on Friday evening, The Tribune Newspaper reports.

 

One of the victims, Stephanie Sturrup, 34, from Westchester England, said the ordeal began after she boarded a jitney traveling to the Pinewood/Kennedy sub-division on Friday evening.

 

Mrs. Sturrup said there were six people on the bus at that time, including the bus driver, and that two men attacked her and two other passengers and threw them off the bus.

 

All three victims received serious injuries, with one passenger still in hospital recovering as of Sunday night.

 

"Never again will I ride on a bus in this country," Mrs. Sturrup said. Her sentiments were emphatically echoed by Sharad Lightfoot, another victim of the brutal attacks.

 

Mrs. Sturrup recounted the trauma of the evening to the Tribune newspaper saying that it all began at about 6:15pm when two male passengers suddenly attacked a third man on the bus.

 

In the area of Baillou Hill Road she then watched in horror as the two attackers threw the man, known only as "Matthew" out of the moving vehicle.

 

Mrs. Sturrup assumed they had removed the man form the bus because he did not pay the fare.

 

Further along Baillou Hill Road the bus stopped and passenger Sharad Lightfoot boarded.

 

Mrs. Sturrup said the two men who had attacked Matthew then assaulted Mr. Lightfoot.

 

"They punched him in the face and tackled him", she said.

 

Recalling the incident, Mr. Lightfoot, 25, of Mahogany Street, said the men took turns punching him in the face as they tried to get to his wallet.

 

Mr. Lightfoot said he finally made it to the door of the bus and pried it open.

 

"I kept calling for the bus driver to stop the bus, but instead he just sped up, he was doing about 50 mph. "They kept pushing me and then they threw me off the bus". he said.

 

Mrs. Sturrup said she saw Mr. Lightfoot hold on to the outside of the bus door before he was thrown off in the Pinewood area.

 

Mrs. Sturrup said after Mr. Lightfoot had been forcefully removed from the jitney, the two men assaulted her, demanding that she give them her handbag.

 

She said she was thrown from the bus as it traveled at high speed somewhere close to the Kennedy sub-dividion.

 

She also appealed to the bus driver for help but it was obvious that he was part of the criminal operation as he offerred no assistance nor did he stop when requested to do so.

 

It is not clear why the bus driver has not been arrested but it is also not suprising. Numeorus murders, assaults and hit-and-run incidents go unpunished in the Bahamas every year due to the completely dysfunctional and corrupt legal system.

 

The public jitney sytem, which often carries many tourists, has become a "wild west" of transportation. Drivers often operate their vehicles while under the influence of alcohol, blaring loud obnoxious music and verbally assaulting women who board their jitneys.

 

Transporation Minister Glenys Hana-Martin has been promising drastic changes to the public transportation system ever since a jitney overturned injuring 26 people in November, 2003. But with the utter incompetence so often displayed by the Christie government, nothing ever gets done past the press release stage.

 

After the incident in 2003, Minister Hanna-Martin said that collaborative ministerial meetings - National Security, Attorney General, Works and Transport & Aviation - have submitted recommendations, which will be implemented over the next few weeks. They never were.

 

She also said she wanted people to know that the long-term problems were being addressed through funding provided by the Inter American Development Bank. The money was apparently funneled to PLP cronies as no changes to the system were ever enacted.

 

"The transportation problems have been neglected for a long time. And changes like a unified public transportation system won't come over night. We have to examine and study the problems and find the best solutions," Mrs. Hanna-Martin said two years ago in an attempt to deal with the matter via a press release. The problems with public transporation in Nassau have only increased since then with the Minister and government doing nothing but making promises.

[AVCONSULTING 0]

I hope you have your British passport up to date so you can hop the first jet to Australia or Canada. I'm afraid the next headline we read will be about you and it won't be good. And I thought Los Angeles was dangerous.

What happened to the happy island paradise advertised on TV?

[rory 0]

yeah i got a new british machine readable passport so i dont need a visa Was in Florida for a couple days end of last year .. boca raton - didnt want to leave!!

 

see if it was me, i would have took out my keys and gone straight for their face, but then I would be in our hell called a prison here ... for defending myself ..i see an attack like that as attempted murder, but the courts here normally see it different ,, i had a similar experience a few years ago here, and they even took my jeep, they got 17 months but it wasnt for attempted murder nor grand theft auto ... at least they got caught for now though .. hey, maybe even be the same people as a jitney was involved in my incident also!!!!!!!!

 

jitney = bus

 

They need to bring back public hangings downtown ... Actually they need to bring back the death penalty again to start with!