Local Reporter Beat In Bahamian Detention Center

Feb 7, 2006 10:22 pm US/Eastern
Local Reporter Beat In Bahamian Detention Center

Vallejo Has Reported And Anchored For The Spanish Television Station
Authorities Have Not Decided If The Cubans Will Be Granted Asylum
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(CBS4 News) KENDALL A Channel 23 reporter was being treated Tuesday
night for a beating he got at a Bahamian detention center where a group
of Cuban migrants found by US Coast Guard last week are being held.

Mario Vallejo, a reporter with the local Spanish Univision affiliate,
was on assignment trying to interview a group of eight Cubans that were
found on Elbow Key off the Bahamas last Thursday. He had first gone
inside the detention center as a visitor with one of the relatives of
the Cubans held inside.

Tensions had already been rising earlier in the week when guards found
out the station had cameras outside the center.

“The cameras are not allowed inside the center, but when they found out
we had cameras outside they went crazy,” said Vallejo.

Vallejo was talking on a public phone outside the jail when he said he
was approached by a guard and beat up.

"He grabbed my neck and slammed my head against the hood of a car," he said.

Vallejo's cameraman was also detained and later released by guards in
the incident.

Vallejo was transported to Kendall Regional Medical Center where doctors
will run a CAT scan and other exams, but he is otherwise expected to be
fine.

The group of Cuban migrants detained was found Thursday near a small
Bahamian island, and family members of those rescued say the eight
people were part of a group of 15 rafters who were reported missing last
Wednesday after leaving Cuba. The family members say the other 6 rafters
who were with them died. The group was rescued by a Coast Guard
helicopter in an area near Elbow Key, after a Bahamian fishing boat
spotted them and contacted the Coast Guard.

CBS4 News has a news partnership with Channel 23.

Calls to Bahamian authorities went unanswered.

Daniel Lastra, CBS4.COM

http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_038222130.html