JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

22 prison officers killed in 28 years

by

Rosemarie Sant
2481 days ago
20181004
Gerald Wilson

Gerald Wilson

In the last 28 years, 22 prison of­fi­cers have lost their lives to gun­men. Two se­nior prison of­fi­cers of the rank of su­per­in­ten­dent have bru­tal­ly mur­dered out­side their homes in the past three years, with Wayne Jack­son be­ing the lat­est vic­tim on Tues­day night.

It’s a sit­u­a­tion which Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son ad­mits to be­ing con­cerned about.

The killings of prison of­fi­cers have spanned al­most every ad­min­is­tra­tion in this coun­try, the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship and the cur­rent PNM gov­ern­ment led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

In this pe­ri­od, the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has plead­ed con­stant­ly for mech­a­nisms to pro­tect the lives of of­fi­cers who they con­tend are un­der con­stant threat from the in­mates un­der their charge.

POA sec­re­tary Ger­ard Gor­don lament­ed that “noth­ing has been im­ple­ment­ed” be­cause in his view, “no one cares about Prison Of­fi­cers and their fam­i­lies.

Just what have they been ask­ing for?

Gor­don said a key el­e­ment is leg­is­la­tion which will send a sig­nal to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment that “the gov­ern­ment, the state is se­ri­ous about the is­sue of at­tacks on of­fi­cers of the se­cu­ri­ty forces.”

He said the mur­ders be­ing per­pe­trat­ed “are not against the prison of­fi­cers alone, it is a com­plete dis­re­gard for the au­thor­i­ties and the state needs to re­spond in an ex­treme­ly open and ag­gres­sive man­ner to stymie the thought of want­i­ng to kill a law en­force­ment of­fi­cial in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Gov­ern­ment needs to be strong and leg­is­late and not just talk.”

Ac­cord­ing to Gor­don, the pro­tec­tion of prison of­fi­cers “is in­ter­wo­ven with the man­age­ment of the jus­tice sys­tem, we are soft tar­gets.”

He said the fail­ure of the ju­di­cia­ry to deal with cas­es in a time­ly man­ner adds to the pres­sures be­hind prison walls.

“The ju­di­cia­ry drag­ging their bel­ly, a com­plete failed or­gan­i­sa­tion the ju­di­cia­ry, they com­fort­able that men locked up sev­en and eight years and I am not talk­ing about guilt or in­no­cence be­cause we can’t even get to that point,” Gor­don said.

He said when pris­on­ers go to court and their mat­ters are ad­journed with­out be­ing heard “they come back with an at­ti­tude and right­ful­ly so, they come back vex and frus­trat­ed.”

Some in­mates, he said, com­mit sui­cide be­cause of the de­lay in their mat­ters and prison of­fi­cers of­ten have to be “moth­er, fa­ther, tan­ty, nen­nen, priest and doc­tor, we have to be every­thing and what do we get?”

Apart from the leg­is­la­tion, he said they had been beg­ging for hous­ing. But he lament­ed that what has hap­pened is that of­fi­cers are now al­lo­cat­ed homes in HDC de­vel­op­ments where ex-pris­on­ers al­so re­side.

“There is a sin­gle fe­male prison of­fi­cer right now, she liv­ing be­tween two ex-pris­on­ers,” he said.

He said when they ques­tioned where of­fi­cers are giv­en homes “we hear­ing cock and bull sto­ries about oh they does mix it be­cause it gives the pub­lic a sense of safe­ty, so even when I on my pri­vate time you putting me in a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment for the safe­ty of the pub­lic. What about my safe­ty, what about the safe­ty of my fam­i­ly?” Gor­don asked.

He said they had writ­ten to Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is short­ly af­ter she as­sumed of­fice ask­ing for a meet­ing to dis­cuss a pro­pos­al hey had us­ing mem­bers’ mon­ey to pro­vide hous­ing in a pri­vate-pub­lic part­ner­ship with the state but had re­ceived no re­sponse. Re­quests for firearms, he said, had al­so been met with neg­a­tiv­i­ty.

“They say­ing don’t give prison of­fi­cers guns, but what is the al­ter­na­tive, they not pro­vid­ing an al­ter­na­tive.”

Com­mis­sion­er Wil­son, who is on va­ca­tion, said he was sad­dened the life of yet an­oth­er col­league had been so bru­tal­ly snuffed out.

Su­per­in­ten­dent Jack­son was shot 32 times in his head, back and oth­er parts of his body as he ex­it­ed his car out­side his Mal­abar home on Tues­day night.

Wil­son said Wil­son was a “no-non­sense type of per­son.”

Jack­son was a su­per­in­ten­dent and died in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances to Su­per­in­ten­dent David Mil­lette, who was shot and killed out­side his Mor­vant Home in No­vem­ber 2015.

Wil­son said, “What has been trend­ing is that if some­thing hap­pens on a sta­tion they tar­get the su­per­in­ten­dent be­cause they would have felt that the su­per­in­ten­dent is the one who makes the rules and the poli­cies.”

He said he had “heard through the grapevine that they pre­fer to go now at se­nior peo­ple to send a mes­sage.”

He is al­so of the view that leg­is­la­tion was “crit­i­cal to curb­ing the be­hav­iours of peo­ple who at­tack prison of­fi­cers.”

Short­ly af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice, Wil­son set up a High-Risk Unit which he said is “in­tel­li­gence based.”

The unit gath­ers in­for­ma­tion and Wil­son said “a lot of times we pass it on to the po­lice, so any­time we get any idea of a threat to an of­fi­cer we con­tact the po­lice.”

As to the re­quest by prison of­fi­cers for guns, he said, “We have to con­sid­er the safe­ty of of­fi­cers, in some cir­cum­stances it works.”

He ob­served that Jack­son had his firearm on him when he was killed.

“It just goes to show you have the un­guard­ed mo­ment. But what of­fi­cers feel is that hav­ing weapons give them a fight­ing chance and you can’t blame any­body who feels that way,” Wil­son said.

PRISON OF­FI­CERS KILLED IN THE LAST 28 YEARS

April 7, 1990: Jaichan Goolcha­ran, 42, killed by an in­mate while on du­ty.

Au­gust 14, 1993: Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Michael Her­cules, 58, shot and killed in Barataria.

Feb­ru­ary 25, 1998: Ju­nior Hold­er, 51, killed in Ch­aguara­mas.

De­cem­ber 12, 2001: Atwell Sandy, 32, shot dead in Cas­cade.

May 4, 2003: Win­ston Sandy, 35, shot dead in Laven­tille.

March 17, 2005: Anslem Paul, 49, shot dead in Laven­tille.

June 18, 2008: An­im Joseph, 31, shot dead in St Joseph.

No­vem­ber 7, 2009: Ian See­gob­in, 35, shot and killed in Arou­ca.

Jan­u­ary 23, 2010: Nata­ki Hal­loway, 32, stran­gled in Gas­par­il­lo.

March 28, 2010: Bernard Thomas, 36, shot dead in To­co.

June 10, 2010: Er­ic Sim­mons 53, shot dead in Laven­tille.

Ju­ly 6, 2010: Mar­vin Di­az, 35, shot dead in Gas­par­il­lo.

Au­gust 21, 2010: Rey­nard Par­ris, 21, dies at EWM­SC af­ter be­ing shot in Mal­abar.

No­vem­ber 7, 2013: Andy Rogers, 42, shot dead in Ari­ma.

June 15, 2014: Do­minic Bernard, 37, stabbed to death in Point-a-Pierre.

Ju­ly 17, 2015: An­dell Primus, 27, shot and killed in Mor­vant.

No­vem­ber 2, 2015: Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons David Mil­lette, 50, shot and killed in Mor­vant.

March 2, 2016: Fitzel­bert Vic­tor, 32, shot and killed by a man who jumped the wall to his Priz­gar Lands, Laven­tille home.

Oc­to­ber 8, 2017: Richard Sandy shot dead at a bar in South Trinidad.

Oc­to­ber 26, 2017: Glen­ford Gard­ner killed at Sea Trace, Bagatelle, Diego Mar­tin.

Jan­u­ary 28, 2018: Devin­dra Boodooram shot and killed while sit­ting in his ve­hi­cle out­side of St Mary’s Col­lege.

Oc­to­ber 2, 2018: Prison Supt Wayne Jack­son, 50, shot and killed out­side his home in Mal­abar, Ari­ma.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored