Another Black Woman Arrested In Turks And Caicos For Alleged Ammo Possession

Tiana Jones was jailed on Aug. 1 after Turks and Caicos authorities allegedly found two rounds of ammo in her possession.

Tiana Jones, a 24-year-old Black woman from Atlanta, is being held in jail in Turks and Caicos after she was flagged and arrested for allegedly having ammunition inside of her luggage.

The woman, who appeared in court on Tuesday, is being held until her attorneys request her bail. According to WSBTV, Jones was reportedly departing Turks and Caicos when police arrested her on Aug. 1 at Howard Hamilton International Airport. Police reported two rounds of ammo in the tourist’s travel belongings, and she now awaits a sufficiency hearing on Oct. 4.

The incident makes Jones the latest American to be put behind bars in Turks and Caicos and marks the detainment of another Black woman in the archipelago nation who was caught due to the law that prohibits bringing ammo into the territory without prior police approval. In May, BLACK ENTERPRISE noted the fight from U.S. lawmakers to have Orlando, Florida resident Sharitta Grier returned to the states after Turks and Caicos Islands Civil Aviation Authority claimed the woman had two bullets in her possession before she was forced to spend three nights in jail.

Loop Caribbean News reported that recent Americans, including Tennessee resident Dave Creary and U.S. resident Abdel Karim Madjido Mbary, were charged in July for possession of ammunition. Creary and Mbary were both taken into custody and remanded in prison as they await sufficiency hearings scheduled for September 6.

Since buckling down on gun laws, Turks and Caicos authorities have detained several Americans in its country and the current arrests follow the detainments of Texas resident Michael Lee Evans, Bryan Hagerich of Pennsylvania, Oklahoma’s Ryan Tyler Watson, and Virginia resident Tyler Wenrich, which BE mentioned were all previously arrested back with Grier after authorities reported ammo possession. U.S. officials negotiated with the country to ensure Americans were granted a fair trial against the law, which initially demanded a minimum 12-year prison sentence for all incidents involving firearms.

The five have since returned to the U.S. Some of the Americans stated the ammunition Turks and Caicos authorities claimed to have found was due to previous storage of bullets they didn’t realize hadn’t been cleared out before bringing their luggage into the territory.