Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A week af­ter mem­bers of the Prison Ser­vice were threat­ened by mem­bers of the crim­i­nal el­e­ment, the homes of two prison of­fi­cers were shot at yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice re­port­ed that af­ter 1 am yes­ter­day, the homes of two of­fi­cers lo­cat­ed in Cara­po were shot at. Po­lice said no one was in­jured dur­ing the shoot­ing.

How­ev­er, the lat­est at­tacks against mem­bers of the ser­vice is reignit­ing a call by the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) for its mem­bers and mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vice to be giv­en firearm users li­cences, es­pe­cial­ly since it comes af­ter they re­ceived valid in­tel­li­gence that their of­fi­cers would be tar­get­ed.

On Jan­u­ary 10, the as­so­ci­a­tion post­ed on its Face­book page, “All mem­bers, please be on high alert. In­for­ma­tion com­ing is that a hefty boun­ty may have been placed on ANY mem­ber of the Trinidad & To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the as­so­ci­a­tion’s Arou­ca of­fice yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion, Ger­ard Gor­don, said prison of­fi­cers are tired of be­ing tak­en for grant­ed.

He said of­fi­cers’ lives were threat­ened if in­mates and/or of­fi­cers were trans­ferred from Build­ing 13 at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca. He said the as­so­ci­a­tion is tired of the promis­es and wants the state to pro­tect of­fi­cers.

“What I would like to tell the na­tion is that we are at our wit’s end. Prison of­fi­cers are re­al­ly fed up. We are fed up of be­ing ig­nored. We are fed up of our is­sues be­ing be­lit­tled, scut­tled, treat­ed as if it doesn’t mat­ter. We are fed up of ex­cus­es be­ing made,” Gor­don said.

POA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Lester Lo­gie said the shoot­ing of the of­fi­cers’ homes comes months af­ter a prison of­fi­cer had to be re­lo­cat­ed, af­ter po­lice re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that he was be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals.

Lo­gie re­peat­ed his call for of­fi­cers to be is­sued with firearms so that they could pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies.

“We are faced with chal­lenges and our main con­cern is at least give the of­fi­cers a fight­ing chance. We re­quest that they is­sue all law en­force­ment, not on­ly prison of­fi­cers, all law en­force­ment, give them a fight­ing chance. So­ci­ety has changed. We have seen peo­ple ... young boys with AR-15 up and down the place. Give us a fight­ing chance,” Lo­gie said.

“That is what we are ask­ing for. Be­cause we are car­ry­ing out rou­tine search­es. Rou­tine! That is your job. Why should I lose my life for do­ing some­thing rou­tine?”

Gor­don said there was an on­go­ing law­suit on the is­sue of se­cu­ri­ty for of­fi­cers against the state brought by the as­so­ci­a­tion that is now a decade old. This, he said, is tes­ta­ment to the fact that the state does not take the se­cu­ri­ty of the of­fi­cers se­ri­ous­ly.