RHON­DOR DOWLAT

& JAN­NELLE BERNARD

Weeks af­ter crim­i­nal el­e­ments is­sued a chill­ing warn­ing and placed boun­ties of up to $350,000 on the heads of prison of­fi­cers, the home of an­oth­er of­fi­cer was shot up ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing.

This lat­est at­tack came just days af­ter the homes of two of­fi­cers were sim­i­lar­ly tar­get­ed on Mon­day. The es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lence has left prison of­fi­cers fear­ful for their lives, with the threat of tar­get­ed at­tacks now be­com­ing a dai­ly re­al­i­ty.

Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Lester Lo­gie yes­ter­day con­firmed that boun­ties rang­ing from $200,000 to $350,000 had been placed on of­fi­cers’ lives, cre­at­ing a cli­mate of fear and un­cer­tain­ty with­in the T&T Prison Ser­vice.

“We are fac­ing a new breed of pris­on­er,” Lo­gie said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

“In the past, con­fis­cat­ing con­tra­band didn’t lead to such con­se­quences. Now, of­fi­cers are be­ing specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed for do­ing their jobs. It’s be­come a life-or-death mat­ter.”

The most re­cent at­tack oc­curred at 3.30 am in Mal­abar, where 21 shots were fired at the of­fi­cer’s home, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the prop­er­ty. For­tu­nate­ly, no in­juries were re­port­ed.

Ear­li­er this week, two of­fi­cers’ homes along the Cara­po Main Road were al­so tar­get­ed, with loud ex­plo­sions heard be­fore bul­let dam­age was dis­cov­ered.

Ari­ma po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing the Cara­po shoot­ing re­cov­ered 14 spent 9mm shells and a sin­gle pro­jec­tile. PC See­taram and WPC Carter are han­dling the case, while in­ves­ti­ga­tors in Mal­abar are try­ing to de­ter­mine whether the in­ci­dents are linked.

The re­cent at­tacks fol­low a pub­lic warn­ing is­sued by the POA less than two weeks ago. On Jan­u­ary 10, the as­so­ci­a­tion urged mem­bers to stay vig­i­lant af­ter in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ed boun­ties had been placed on of­fi­cers’ lives.

“All mem­bers, please stay on high alert. Re­ports in­di­cate that a hefty boun­ty may have been placed on any mem­ber of the Trinidad & To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice,” the no­tice read.

Yes­ter­day, Lo­gie em­pha­sised that of­fi­cers are on edge. “They come to work but are con­stant­ly look­ing over their shoul­ders,” he said.

The root of the height­ened threats, ac­cord­ing to Lo­gie, lies in the re­cent trans­fer of in­mates from Build­ing 13 at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca, which hous­es vi­o­lent gang lead­ers.

“We had been push­ing for the clo­sure of Build­ing 13 for years af­ter los­ing sev­er­al of­fi­cers to in­ci­dents there. Now that in­mates have been moved, the threats have in­ten­si­fied. They warned us: ‘One a day if we’re moved,’ and they mean it,” he ex­plained.

The POA has long plead­ed with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to strength­en pro­tec­tion for of­fi­cers.

“We’ve writ­ten to the min­is­ter count­less times but our calls for help have fall­en on deaf ears. Of­fi­cers need pro­tec­tion off du­ty. While is­su­ing per­son­al firearms may not be fea­si­ble, amend­ing the Firearms Act to al­low of­fi­cers to buy their own firearms and bul­let­proof vests is a rea­son­able re­quest,” Lo­gie said.

The as­so­ci­a­tion has al­so pro­posed sev­er­al so­lu­tions, in­clud­ing es­tab­lish­ing safe hous­ing for at-risk of­fi­cers, such as re­pur­pos­ing dor­mi­to­ries at prison fa­cil­i­ties or build­ing apart­ments near the MSP. How­ev­er, Lo­gie ex­pressed frus­tra­tion with the cur­rent state of dor­mi­to­ries, call­ing them “de­plorable” and un­suit­able for long-term stays.

Lo­gie said the as­so­ci­a­tion’s dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s in­ac­tion has reached a boil­ing point. He con­firmed that they have for­mal­ly re­quest­ed the Prime Min­is­ter re­view Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds’ ap­point­ment.

“Un­der Min­is­ter Hinds, there has been no progress on of­fi­cer safe­ty. In con­trast, min­is­ters like Stu­art Young made tan­gi­ble ef­forts. Of­fi­cers are ques­tion­ing whether their lives are worth less than their jobs,” Lo­gie said.

The prison sys­tem faces oth­er chal­lenges be­yond of­fi­cer safe­ty, with in­ad­e­quate re­sources al­so af­fect­ing op­er­a­tions.

“When the bud­get is a state­ment of in­tent and noth­ing is al­lo­cat­ed for san­i­ta­tion, it’s clear that the sys­tem is falling apart,” Lo­gie added.

Ef­forts to meet with key stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Natasha Bar­row, have yield­ed lit­tle progress, he said. A let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 23, 2024, high­light­ed the need for re­forms to ad­dress the ris­ing threats and de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tions. An­oth­er let­ter from Ju­ly 2024 stressed the ur­gent need for new bul­let­proof vests and ser­vice firearms, not­ing that cur­rent vests had ex­pired, and the al­lo­ca­tion of firearms for off-du­ty pro­tec­tion was in­ad­e­quate.

Lo­gie point­ed out that while threats to of­fi­cers are not new, the lev­el of vi­o­lence has es­ca­lat­ed due to the re­sources and bold­ness of crim­i­nal gangs.

“These crim­i­nals have both the means and the mo­tive to car­ry out their threats. Of­fi­cers are be­ing hunt­ed, and the State is do­ing noth­ing to stop it,” he said.

As in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the re­cent at­tacks con­tin­ue, he warned that the lack of ac­tion could have grave con­se­quences.

“If of­fi­cers feel their safe­ty is com­pro­mised, they may pri­ori­tise their lives over their jobs, and we could see a mass ex­o­dus from the ser­vice,” Lo­gie cau­tioned.

The as­so­ci­a­tion is urg­ing the pub­lic to pro­vide any in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice that could aid in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the at­tacks.

But for prison of­fi­cers, Lo­gie said the harsh re­al­i­ty re­mains.

“You can find an­oth­er job, but you can’t re­place your life,” Lo­gie said, not­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion was a stark re­minder of the dead­ly risks they face dai­ly.