Po­lice last night de­scribed the mur­der of a se­nior prison of­fi­cer as a hit.

Act­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons Wayne Jack­son, 50, who was as­signed the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, was shot re­peat­ed­ly as he ar­rived at his home in Mal­abar, short­ly af­ter 6.30 pm, po­lice said.

Jack­son served for over 30 years in the T&T Pris­ons Ser­vice and there was an out­pour­ing of grief and de­mand for jus­tice on so­cial me­dia as news spread of his killing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Jack­son had just pulled up in his dri­ve­way when two gun­men am­bushed him and shot him dead. He lived a stone's throw away from the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um.

Up to press time, de­tails were still sketchy but Guardian Me­dia was told that po­lice had re­cov­ered over 30 spent shells at the scene.

A se­nior prison of­fi­cer, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said Jack­son was not well ap­pre­ci­at­ed among the prison pop­u­la­tion.

Asked why, the of­fi­cer replied: "Well...you know at the MSP is a very hard and tough prison and he was a no-non­sense kind of of­fi­cer...you know how things are."

How­ev­er, an­oth­er pris­ons source, who al­so wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said it is be­lieved that Jack­son was killed fol­low­ing an in­ci­dent that tran­spired over the week­end dur­ing a sport­ing event that took place in the gym area at MSP.

The source claimed that there was a foot­ball game in the gym area and ap­par­ent­ly there was a con­fronta­tion with Jack­son and rel­a­tives of in­mates.

"It is be­ing said that that was the last straw that broke the camel's back per se. He al­ways threat­ened to take away all sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties for the in­mates and they were very un­hap­py with it. I was hear­ing that this foot­ball event was said to be the last which means that all recre­ation for pris­on­ers would be a thing of the past af­ter that," the pris­ons source said.

The se­nior of­fi­cer al­so con­firmed that the­o­ry.

An au­top­sy will be con­duct­ed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James to­day.

A state­ment from the T&T Prison Ser­vice has con­firmed Jack­son was shot and killed while en­ter­ing his Mal­abar home.

The Prison Ser­vice said it is work­ing along­side the Po­lice Ser­vice to as­cer­tain mo­tive and seek out those re­spon­si­ble for "this cow­ard­ly and heinous act."

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.