Geisha Kow­lessar

A sus­pect­ed hit from be­hind the pris­ons walls may have been re­spon­si­ble for the killing of pris­ons su­per­in­ten­dent David Mil­lette.

The 50-year-old-of­fi­cer, who had some 20 years ser­vice, was gunned down around 8.30 am as he en­tered his car which was parked in front his home at Cipri­ani Av­enue, Sec­ond Cale­do­nia.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said they were told by res­i­dents that short­ly af­ter Mil­lette en­tered his car loud ex­plo­sions were heard.

He was found slumped in the dri­ver's seat. The en­gine was still run­ning and wind­shield wipers were on.

Mil­lette was killed mere hours af­ter three pris­ons of­fi­cers were at­tacked by a knife-wield­ing in­mate at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison on Sun­day, re­sult­ing in prison of­fi­cers de­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as "boil­ing point."

And in light of the re­cent att­tacks against pris­ons of­fi­cers Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­l­lon, in an in­ter­view, said he was con­sid­er­ing giv­ing pris­ons of­fi­cers per­mis­sion to car­ry firearms.

He said he was con­cerned that of­fi­cers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices who serve the coun­try were ap­par­ent­ly un­der at­tack from crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

In an im­me­di­ate re­lease, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion con­demned Mil­lette's killing, de­scrib­ing it as an at­tack not on­ly on the Pris­ons Ser­vice but the Ju­di­cial Ser­vice as well.

A state­ment is­sued by the as­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day, not on­ly called on a through in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the slay­ing but al­so de­mand­ed that the per­pe­tra­tors be brought to jus­tice.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so urged the po­lice to bring a sat­is­fac­to­ry lev­el of con­trol over the crime scourge sweep­ing the coun­try.

"The as­so­ci­a­tion has every con­fi­dence that the po­lice will thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate this mat­ter and bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice," it added.

As scores of po­lice of­fi­cers gath­ered at the hilly ter­rain pro­cess­ing the crime scene, res­i­dents gath­ered in small clus­ters.

Some spoke non­cha­lant­ly about the lat­est slay­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty al­ready be­set by vi­o­lent crimes.

Ten­sion, how­ev­er, mo­men­tar­i­ly rose when a young male sus­pect, with a blue jer­sey pulled over his head, was whisked away by po­lice in­to a wait­ing jeep.

But as he was be­ing lead away a hand­ful of res­i­dents vo­cif­er­ous­ly spoke on his be­half.

"What is dat one? He is an in­no­cent youth man. Al­lyuh hold­ing de peo­ple. He here lim­ing with we whole morn­ing," one woman said, as oth­ers joined in the man's de­fence.

In­sp Roger Alexan­der quick­ly in­ter­vened to quell con­cerns, as­sur­ing res­i­dents that the po­lice were sim­ply do­ing their work.

Mil­lette had no chil­dren. His wife who ar­rived on the scene around 10 am briefly stood at the side of the road­way, ac­com­pa­nied by four peo­ple.

She then got in­to a heav­i­ly-tint­ed SUV and sat in the back seat for an hour and a half be­fore the dri­ver drove off.

Death threats

As tears welled in her eyes David's el­der­ly moth­er, Phyl­lis, re­called fears ex­pressed by her first-born.

She said her son, who was on a one-year va­ca­tion, had told her his name was on a pur­port­ed list bear­ing the names of 100 pris­ons of­fi­cers to be killed.

She said yes­ter­day morn­ing David was sup­posed to take her to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal to vis­it her hus­band who re­cent­ly suf­fered a heart at­tack.

"But my son told me he was not feel­ing so good. He got wet and was feel­ing a lit­tle fever­ish. So from the hos­pi­tal I went with the dri­ver to see if I could get some feed for the fowls and while do­ing that my daugh­ter from Eng­land called me.

"She told me some­thing very se­ri­ous hap­pen to David home. I then call the gar­den­er by me and that is when I find out... he tell me David dead," the frail 71-year-old woman said.

Re­gard­ing a mo­tive for her son's death, Phyl­lis said he did not pro­vide her with any par­tic­u­lars.

"He didn't say any­body was threat­en­ing him but he did say his name was on a list ....on a list of a 100 pris­ons of­fi­cers. He told me that be­fore he went on hol­i­days a few months ago," Phyl­lis said.

She said her son, who was last as­signed to the San­ta Rosa Cor­rec­tion­al In­sti­tu­tion and the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, was sup­posed to re­turn to work next Ju­ly.

As tears flowed freely down her cheeks, Phyl­lis' gnarled hands trem­bled as she de­scribed her son as lov­ing, kind and al­ways will­ing to as­sist.

He was very, very nice. If I call him to do any­thing he would do it," Phyl­lis said.

Her younger son, Steven­son Jr, said while he was un­aware of the de­tails sur­round­ing his broth­er's death, he had con­fi­dence in the work of the po­lice.

Of­fi­cers un­der at­tack

Mil­lette's killing has come on the heels of three of­fi­cers be­ing stabbed at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, on Sun­day at 11.30 pm.

Pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons As­so­ci­a­tion, Cer­ron Richards, who was al­so present at the mur­der scene yes­ter­day said he too al­so be­lieved Mil­lette's killing was an or­gan­ised hit from with­in the pris­ons' walls.

"We sus­pect it could be some­thing called from be­hind the pris­ons' walls but again the in­for­ma­tion will be com­ing in as we go for­ward," Richards said.

De­scrib­ing Mil­lette's mur­der and that of oth­er pris­ons of­fi­cers along with nu­mer­ous at­tacks as un­ten­able, Richards called for a meet­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon.

Pris­ons of­fi­cers said the at­tack oc­curred dur­ing a rou­tine search as a few cells were ran­dom­ly searched.

Richards said dur­ing the search a switch­blade was dis­cov­ered.

"The in­mates were re­luc­tant to hand over the switch­blade and as a re­sult of that the of­fi­cer was at­tacked. The of­fi­cer sum­moned help and what­ev­er en­sued three of­fi­cers were in­jured and had to be hos­pi­talised... noth­ing crit­i­cal but se­ri­ous.

"And it is se­ri­ous be­cause of the na­ture of the in­ci­dent," Richards said.

The pris­on­er who al­leged­ly at­tacked the of­fi­cers is al­ready fac­ing a mur­der charge and is like­ly to be hauled be­fore the courts to an­swer fresh charges.

It is un­der­stood that oth­er items were re­port­ed­ly found dur­ing the search in­clud­ing cig­a­rettes, cell­phone bat­ter­ies and cell­phones.

Flash­back

?Pris­ons of­fi­cers killed or at­tacked this year

�2 Ju­ly 17: An­del Primus, 27, of Baga­loo Trace, En­ter­prise, was shot mul­ti­ple times and was thrown out of a ve­hi­cle in Red Hill, Mor­vant. Primus sur­vived.

�2 Ju­ly 19: Otis John­son was shot mo­ments af­ter he left the Fred­er­ick Street Prison. John­son was walk­ing on Fred­er­ick Street when oc­cu­pants of a car shot him in the back and ab­domen. A pass­ing am­bu­lance took him to hos­pi­tal. He suc­cumbed to his wounds.

�2 Ju­ly 29: Robert Seecha­ran was shot dead with his ser­vice firearm by a close fe­male rel­a­tive dur­ing a do­mes­tic dis­pute in Pe­nal.

�2 Jun 16, 2014: Do­minique Bernard, of Jack Street, Clax­ton Bay, was killed at the home of his girl­friend at Plai­sance Park. His 23-year-old col­league sur­ren­dered to po­lice two hours lat­er.