Rachael Es­pinet

Mem­bers of the Prison Ser­vice are try­ing to con­tain a ri­ot go­ing on in the re­mand yard of the Gold­en Grove Prison in Arou­ca.

T&T Guardian spoke to a prison of­fi­cer, who con­firmed that at about 6 am to­day pris­on­ers be­gan to ri­ot when of­fi­cers opened their cells for break­fast.

Five of­fi­cers were bad­ly beat­en and are cur­rent­ly ward­ed at the Er­ic Williams Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope. Of­fi­cers were stabbed and one of­fi­cer's teeth were bro­ken.

T&T Guardian was in­formed that the pris­on­ers were in pos­ses­sion of weapons craft­ed by the pris­on­ers.

These in­clude shanks made out of tooth brush­es and met­al ob­jects.

The pris­on­ers have bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves in an area in the prison. The of­fi­cer said the pris­on­ers have cre­at­ed shields to pre­vent the of­fi­cers from harm­ing them if the ri­ot po­lice were to en­ter.

Prison Of­fi­cers are try­ing to ne­go­ti­ate with the pris­on­ers to end the ri­ot. How­ev­er, many prison of­fi­cers do not want to en­gage with the pris­on­ers be­cause they fear for their lives.

Mem­bers of the Ri­ot squad are stand­ing by at Gold­en Grove to as­sist if prison of­fi­cers are un­able to con­tain the sit­u­a­tion.

A pris­on­er in­formed T&T Guardian that the ri­ot en­sued fol­low­ing an in­ci­dent where the pris­on­ers were soaked with wa­ter and an Imam was bad­ly beat­en in­side the prison. How­ev­er, T&T Guardian could not con­firm this state­ment.

There are un­con­firmed re­ports that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 pris­on­ers were in­jured dur­ing the ri­ot.