(Reuters) – The Bahamas legislature was forced to suspend its session on Wednesday after a heated debate over a police corruption scandal escalated, with an opposition lawmaker taking the symbolic parliamentary mace and throwing it out the window.
MP Shanendon Cartwright, frustrated after Speaker Patricia Deveaux did not allow him to speak, was seen rushing over, grabbing the parliamentary mace, a heavy ceremonial staff, from the bench and then throwing it out of a nearby window.
“Get him!” Deveaux then screamed as the incident was recorded on a government broadcast.
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He, along with several allied lawmakers, were forced out of the building by police.
This move dates back to 1965, when the leader of the opposition threw the mace out the window in an attempt for political change, an event that became known as ‘Black Tuesday’.
It comes after US federal prosecutors accused several high-ranking Bahamian police officials of facilitating the flow of cocaine into the US in exchange for bribes.
Prime Minister Philip Davis said at Wednesday’s hearing that the police commissioner had resigned and promised a complete overhaul of the force to root out corruption.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside parliament, shouting: “The police are criminals!”
(Reporting by Kylie Madry and Robertson S. Henry; Editing by David Gregorio)
