Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice from var­i­ous op­er­a­tional and in­tel­li­gence units have been briefed af­ter threats were made against po­lice of­fi­cers and a deputy com­mis­sion­er of pris­ons.

A voice note cir­cu­lat­ed on What­sApp be­tween Fri­day and Sat­ur­day in­clud­ed threats to po­lice of­fi­cers from mem­bers of the Re­sis­tance gang. They were made af­ter four men sus­pect­ed of in­volve­ment in the kid­nap­ping of dou­bles ven­dor An­isha Ho­sein-Singh were killed by po­lice in Up­per St Michael’s Road, off St John’s Road, St Au­gus­tine, on Thurs­day.

In­tel­li­gence sources con­firmed that a meet­ing was held on Sat­ur­day to dis­cuss the threat and the in­flu­ence of the Re­sis­tance gang. They said there was no cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest the threats would de­vel­op in­to at­tacks on po­lice but of­fi­cers were still ad­vised to be on alert as pa­trols and ex­er­cis­es in and around the St Au­gus­tine and Tu­na­puna will in­crease.

“There have been sit­u­a­tions in the past where crim­i­nals have made very se­ri­ous, cred­i­ble threats to the lives of po­lice of­fi­cers and it came to our at­ten­tion.

“How­ev­er in the af­ter­math of every fa­tal po­lice shoot­ing there is al­ways a threat or a mum­bling some­where about re­tal­i­at­ing against the po­lice,” a source said.

“We con­tin­ue to take every in­ci­dent se­ri­ous­ly, but we are not aware of any ma­jor de­vel­op­ments that sug­gest an im­mi­nent threat is un­der­way.”

The of­fi­cer said the Re­sis­tance Gang has es­tab­lished ter­ri­to­ries in St John’s Road, St Au­gus­tine, Tu­na­puna, Arou­ca and parts of Ari­ma.

A video threat­en­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe was al­so cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia. In the video Cor­raspe’s name was seen writ­ten on a piece of pa­per sur­round­ed by as­sault ri­fles with the words, “Don’t play.”

Of­fi­cers from the Cy­ber Crime and So­cial Me­dia Unit are try­ing to trace the ori­gin of that threat. It was not known if that threat al­so orig­i­nat­ed from the Re­sis­tance Gang.

Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) Ger­ard Gor­don said while the video high­light­ed the dan­ger prison of­fi­cers faced, it was not par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing. He said prison of­fi­cers did not seem to be par­tic­u­lar­ly un­set­tled by it.

“We are not par­tic­u­lar­ly more con­cerned than we al­ready are as it re­lates to the safe­ty of our mem­bers and oth­er of­fi­cers. To be very hon­est, threats are ba­si­cal­ly al­most a dai­ly oc­cur­rence in the life of a prison of­fi­cer,” he said.

“It’s a con­stant con­cern that prison of­fi­cers have but it’s al­so the con­stant en­vi­ron­ment we face.”

Gor­don said he hoped those re­spon­si­ble for threat­en­ing prison of­fi­cers would be found and brought to jus­tice.

Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar said he was aware of the video but could not of­fer any more in­for­ma­tion and ef­forts to con­tact Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds were un­suc­cess­ful.