Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe is launch­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the es­cape of pris­on­er Abra­ham Brig­gs, who was killed by po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing a re­port­ed con­fronta­tion.

The Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er al­so apol­o­gised for the es­cape of the in­mate.

He said the in­ci­dent has al­so led to a re­view of prison op­er­a­tions, as a prison of­fi­cer was sup­posed to be su­per­vis­ing Brig­gs, who, based on the records, had ac­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed his work out­side.

Brig­gs, 28, of Brook­lyn Bridge Road, San­gre Grande, was serv­ing a six-year sen­tence for rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion and was sched­uled to be re­leased in March 2029. He es­caped cus­tody around 5 pm on Tues­day while on labour du­ty at the Youth Trans­for­ma­tion and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (YTRC).

He died at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing shot dur­ing a con­fronta­tion along Jawars­ingh Dri­ve, Guaico Tamana Road. Po­lice said dur­ing a pa­trol around 11.30 am on Ju­ly 23, they saw Brig­gs, who ran off. The of­fi­cers said they pur­sued him and he point­ed what they be­lieved to be a gun at them. Brig­gs was shot and tak­en to the near­by hos­pi­tal. Po­lice said the gun fell in­to a near­by swampy area and could not be found.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Cor­raspe said he is look­ing in­to how Brig­gs es­caped.

“I must, as head of the prison ser­vice, apol­o­gise to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty for the es­cape of the in­mate. Any­time an in­mate es­capes le­gal cus­tody, whether in­side or out of an SoE, the prison ser­vice must be held ac­count­able.”

The prison chief added that Brig­gs was re­quired to be un­der the di­rect su­per­vi­sion of an of­fi­cer. Cor­raspe said there was a cease labour time, and based on the ini­tial re­port, Brig­gs had stopped work­ing.

“I wish to place on record that this ini­tial re­port will now be for­ward­ed to the Prison Dis­ci­pline Sec­tion for its re­view to de­ter­mine any al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct that may have arisen.”

Cor­raspe said the prison ser­vice will now re­view its op­er­a­tions.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion, Lester Lo­gie, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, said Brig­gs was not sup­posed to be per­form­ing du­ties, hav­ing been con­vict­ed ear­li­er this year. He added that he should not have been out­side ei­ther, as all work should have stopped in keep­ing with the cease labour pol­i­cy, which man­dates that all work ends at 4 pm.

In re­sponse, Cor­raspe said there is no gen­er­al or­der spec­i­fy­ing a time frame or pro­hibit­ing any con­vict­ed in­mate from work­ing.

“The War­rant of Com­mit­ment in­vari­ably states hard labour. There used to be a Gen­er­al Or­der that spec­i­fied that the of­fend­er had to have com­plet­ed three-fifths of their sen­tence be­fore they could be in an out gang. How­ev­er, this was re­scind­ed by a past Com­mis­sion­er in 2022, there is now no spec­i­fied time lim­it.”