JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Suspect in attack on prison officers detained

by

Rhondor Dowlat
28 days ago
20250125
The Maximum Security Prison in Arouca.

The Maximum Security Prison in Arouca.

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds has is­sued a third de­ten­tion or­der un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2024, amidst ris­ing threats to pub­lic safe­ty and es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence against prison of­fi­cers.

The lat­est or­der, signed on Thurs­day, au­tho­rised the de­ten­tion of Joshua Roberts, al­so known as “Jaf­fa” or “Jaf­far,” of But­ter­cup Av­enue, Pine Set­tle­ment, Ojoe Road, San­gre Grande.

Ac­cord­ing to in­tel­li­gence re­ports in a Le­gal No­tice pub­lished in the T&T Gazette yes­ter­day, Roberts was re­cruit­ed to car­ry out tar­get­ed at­tacks on prison of­fi­cers us­ing high-pow­ered weapons, a sit­u­a­tion al­leged­ly or­ches­trat­ed by a high-rank­ing in­car­cer­at­ed crim­i­nal. Roberts is to be de­tained at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa or an­oth­er des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tion.

The de­ten­tion comes amid grow­ing con­cerns over the safe­ty of prison of­fi­cers. Crim­i­nal el­e­ments have re­cent­ly placed boun­ties rang­ing from $200,000 to $350,000 on of­fi­cers’ lives. Just this week, the home of a prison of­fi­cer in Mal­abar was sprayed with 21 bul­lets, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age. For­tu­nate­ly, no in­juries were re­port­ed. This at­tack fol­lowed two sim­i­lar in­ci­dents along the Cara­po Main Road last Wednes­day, where of­fi­cers’ homes were al­so tar­get­ed.

Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Lester Lo­gie has con­firmed the threats in­ten­si­fied af­ter the trans­fer of vi­o­lent gang lead­ers from Build­ing 13 at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca, which the POA had been ad­vo­cat­ing for years.

The POA has been vo­cal in de­mand­ing pro­tec­tion for of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing amend­ments to the Firearms Act to al­low of­fi­cers to pur­chase per­son­al firearms and bul­let­proof vests.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter Hinds has de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to in­voke emer­gency pow­ers for pre­ven­tive de­ten­tions.

On Jan­u­ary 17, he au­tho­rised the de­ten­tion of Calvin Lee, al­so known as “Tyson,” who was iden­ti­fied as the leader of the SIXX gang in the or­der. Lee is ac­cused of plan­ning vi­o­lent re­tal­ia­to­ry ac­tions in­volv­ing high-pow­ered weapons and ex­plo­sives. An­oth­er de­ten­tion or­der, signed on Jan­u­ary 13, tar­get­ed Shum­ba James, a for­mer State wit­ness ac­cused of plot­ting to mur­der key wit­ness­es in a case against him.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored