Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The seizure of 40 cell­phones dur­ing two sep­a­rate raids at the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison has re­port­ed­ly an­gered re­put­ed gang mem­bers, who have al­leged­ly is­sued threats against of­fi­cials in re­tal­i­a­tion for the op­er­a­tion.

Sources con­firmed that a joint op­er­a­tion in­volv­ing prison and po­lice of­fi­cers at Build­ing 13 on Jan­u­ary 2 re­sult­ed in a phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion with in­mates who re­fused to com­ply with the of­fi­cers’ in­struc­tions.

Sev­er­al in­mates who were re­port­ed­ly beat­en have al­leged­ly made threats to “the sys­tem,” which led to a se­ries of re­spons­es from both the prison and po­lice ser­vice. A se­nior po­lice source con­firmed that au­thor­i­ties are tak­ing the threats “very se­ri­ous­ly,” as those is­su­ing them did not spec­i­fy their in­tend­ed tar­gets. “This isn’t the sort of thing we’re pre­pared to take light­ly. This is a very se­ri­ous mat­ter, and there are pro­vi­sions in place to en­sure the safe­ty of all of our of­fi­cers on and off du­ty.” 

An of­fi­cer from an in­tel­li­gence unit con­firmed hear­ing about an in­ci­dent that trig­gered a height­ened se­cu­ri­ty re­sponse from po­lice last week. While ef­forts were made to bol­ster se­cu­ri­ty around po­lice sta­tions, he said the threat was not yet con­sid­ered cred­i­ble.

“The prison ser­vice and the po­lice ser­vice would have dif­fer­ent rubrics on how to grade threats, so for now we don’t see any ma­jor se­cu­ri­ty risk. We know the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) would have done some work, but thus far no one has come for­ward with any in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest it’s cred­i­ble.” 

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to reach DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin to ver­i­fy this on Thurs­day.  On Thurs­day, a screen­shot al­leged­ly show­ing in­ter­nal cor­re­spon­dence with­in the TTPS was shared on so­cial me­dia. The mes­sage warned that the po­lice ser­vice was on “high alert” due to in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ing that gang mem­bers were plan­ning “ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties in and around po­lice build­ings.”

Of­fi­cers at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, were urged to take ex­tra cau­tion while on du­ty. The of­fi­cers were al­so man­dat­ed to search vis­i­tors and to iden­ti­fy them­selves with their of­fi­cial ID cards and badges when en­ter­ing build­ings. 

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the no­tice al­so ad­vised that of­fi­cers have been au­tho­rised to use “heavy arms” at the build­ing’s North Gate as sen­tries were re­quired to “chal­lenge all per­son­nel” en­ter­ing the com­pound. 

A spokesper­son from the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit

con­firmed the au­then­tic­i­ty of the in­for­ma­tion. How­ev­er, they clar­i­fied that it was mere­ly a re­minder is­sued by DCP Ad­min­is­tra­tion Natasha George, re­it­er­at­ing ear­li­er in­for­ma­tion shared af­ter a bomb threat at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion on Mon­day.

Pris­ons head: Cops have au­thor­i­ty to search prison

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on Wednes­day, DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin said po­lice and prison au­thor­i­ties were work­ing close­ly to gath­er in­tel­li­gence, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to peo­ple en­ter­ing and leav­ing these fa­cil­i­ties. 

“We con­tin­ue to have peo­ple work­ing with the prison ser­vice to en­sure we have mon­i­tor­ing of per­sons go­ing in and out of the pris­ons, and as we con­tin­ue to work with them, we will for­mu­late strate­gies nec­es­sary to seek to curb this so that it (vi­o­lence) doesn’t go out of hand.” 

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe af­firmed that po­lice have ju­ris­dic­tion to con­duct in­ves­ti­ga­tions with­in pris­ons when crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is sus­pect­ed. He high­light­ed the im­por­tance of col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween po­lice and prison of­fi­cials to up­hold law and or­der.

“If it is de­ter­mined that crime is tak­ing place in any prison, then the po­lice have na­tion­al ju­ris­dic­tion that in­cludes the prison. To the ex­tent that such in­stances arise, the po­lice will come in from time to time and do their in­ves­ti­ga­tions and as­sist in joint op­er­a­tions, all with the in­tent to en­hance pub­lic safe­ty and to en­sure crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is not tak­ing place. 

“Whether it be in re­la­tion to in­mates or prison of­fi­cers. Any­time crim­i­nal or un­law­ful con­duct is tak­ing place, the po­lice are en­ti­tled to in­ves­ti­gate, and of course, it’s a mat­ter of cour­tesy and co­op­er­a­tion, which is some­thing we as­sist with.” 

Cor­raspe con­firmed that a joint po­lice-prison op­er­a­tion oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 2. How­ev­er, he could not con­firm if threats were di­rect­ed at of­fi­cials. He said it was not un­com­mon for in­mates to make threats to­wards of­fi­cers and that all in­ci­dents were tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and for­ward­ed to the po­lice im­me­di­ate­ly.

DCP Op­er­a­tions: We will tack­le crim­i­nal­i­ty any­where

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin said the prison would not be ex­clud­ed from height­ened po­lice ex­er­cis­es dur­ing the SoE as the po­lice were pre­pared to in­ves­ti­gate crim­i­nal­i­ty any­where. While he did not con­firm whether threats were made di­rect­ly to se­nior of­fi­cers dur­ing the ex­er­cise on Jan­u­ary 2, Ben­jamin said any threats would be dealt with by po­lice and in­sist­ed that they would not be de­terred.

“Our op­er­a­tions would lead to any­one who seeks to threat­en the pub­lic safe­ty; we are go­ing to be deal­ing with them, and it doesn’t mat­ter whether they (crim­i­nals) are in jail or out on land or at sea; we are go­ing to pur­sue those per­sons with­out fear or favour, mal­ice or ill will, and we will take the fight wher­ev­er it has to go to build that lev­el of safe­ty for our cit­i­zens.” 

Ben­jamin not­ed that while he was not aware of any spe­cif­ic threat to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, he con­firmed that as part of the SoE, mea­sures were be­ing tak­en to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty at po­lice build­ings and sta­tions. 

Con­cerns have been raised about se­cu­ri­ty at sta­tions fol­low­ing the De­cem­ber 28 shoot­ing of Trevor Williams near the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion. Williams was am­bushed by at­tack­ers hid­ing in a parked pan­el van.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Ben­jamin stat­ed that the TTPS is re­view­ing its se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols to en­hance safe­ty. Pend­ing the Com­mis­sion­er’s ap­proval, plans in­clude height­ened po­lice pres­ence and case-by-case risk as­sess­ments for vis­i­tors.

“We are the po­lice ser­vice for all, and every­one en­ter­ing must feel safe,” Ben­jamin em­pha­sised.