A Miami-based television reporter and two cameramen were injured and briefly jailed by Bahamian police Tuesday while covering the detention of Cuban migrants on the island.
Manuel Vallejo, a reporter with WLTV-Univision 23, sustained a cut to his head. He was treated at a local hospital a released.
Cameraman Osvaldo Duarte, also of Channel 23, was arrested, along with Lazaro Obreu, a cameraman with Telemundo Channel 51. Both men were eventually released.
Emilio Marrero, Channel 23’s news director, said Vallejo and Duarte had been in Nassau covering the plight of seven Cubans rescued last week from a deserted Bahamian island. On Tuesday, the crew was outside the Carmichael Detention Center where the group is being held.
They were there to cover a reunion between the migrants and their Miami relatives who flew to Nassau.
“We don’t know what happened, but things got out of hand,” Marrero said.
On the air, Vallejo said the scuffle began as he was on his cellphone to the station back in Miami reporting that Obreu was being arrested. A Bahamian officer grabbed him and slammed him against a parked car. “He split his head above his eyebrow,” Marrero said.
