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Friday, February 28, 2025

Prison Officers' Association angry as 2 members’ homes shot up

by

Jensen LaVende
38 days ago
20250121
 General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association Lester Logie (L) speaks as POA president Gerard Godon looks on during an interview at the Assocation Railway Road office yesterday.

General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association Lester Logie (L) speaks as POA president Gerard Godon looks on during an interview at the Assocation Railway Road office yesterday.

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.


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