JENSEN LA VENDE

Prison of­fi­cer De­ven­dra Boodooram, 50, who was killed on Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day felt so safe in his du­ties that he told his fam­i­ly on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions that should a ri­ot break out he will be pro­tect­ed by the in­mates.

Yes­ter­day, around 5 pm, fol­low­ing death threats post­ed on so­cial me­dia af­ter his col­leagues were record­ed kick­ing pris­on­ers while the in­mates were tied up, a gun­man walked up to his ve­hi­cle and shot him at least four times in the head.

The killer, who was wear­ing a long sleeved grey jer­sey and short pants, ran up Fred­er­ick Street and across Ox­ford Street head­ing to­ward Chaf­ford Courts. Po­lice said the killer came out of a ve­hi­cle that was seen near the prison mo­ments be­fore the mur­der

Fol­low­ing the killing, a 47-sec­ond voice note be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on What­sapp warn­ing prison of­fi­cers to re­main in­doors and be vig­i­lant as the crim­i­nal el­e­ment said they were tar­get­ing four prison of­fi­cers by the end of to­day.

Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son said his of­fi­cers need­ed to be vig­i­lant and the most that can be done was to put things in place and pro­tect of­fi­cers as much as pos­si­ble. He added there was noth­ing that can be done about law­less­ness.

"We will do what we can do, we can­not be with every of­fi­cer all the time so com­mon sense has to pre­vail and peo­ple need to be care­ful of what we are do­ing," Wil­son said adding that the killing is di­rect­ly linked to the record­ed in­ci­dent days ago.

Sev­en in­mates re­ceived med­ical treat­ment fol­low­ing the beat­ing and Wil­son ap­point­ed an As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Boodooram’s wife, Asha, said her hus­band spoke with her min­utes be­fore his death in­form­ing her that he was go­ing to Ladies Night Out with some co-work­ers.

“I talk to him min­utes be­fore he leave work, he tell me he and them fel­las go­ing and make a cook and then he go­ing Ladies Night Out. I tell him OK. So when I hear about it I said it couldn’t be him be­cause I just spoke with him,” Boodooram.

By 7.15 pm when the T&T Guardian tele­phoned her, Boodooram said no of­fi­cial from po­lice or prison had con­tact­ed her.

She added that her hus­band was the best any woman could have. The fa­ther of two girls, one a schol­ar­ship win­ner who cur­rent­ly at­tends Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, worked as a prison of­fi­cer for the past 24 years.

Boodooram said her hus­band at first tried out to be a po­lice of­fi­cer but failed and when he ap­plied to be a prison of­fi­cer he was suc­cess­ful.

She said the death threats made against prison of­fi­cers was not tak­en se­ri­ous­ly by him as he was not on du­ty when the prison search took place on Tues­day where the in­mates were kicked and beat­en and he worked in con­struc­tion.

Boodooram said her hus­band worked at the Port- of- Spain Prison for the past three years and spent many years be­fore at Car­rera Is­land Prison. It was while work­ing on the is­land that he boast­ed that the in­mates would fight for him.

"He was a good work­er. Even the in­mates would say so. He got killed be­cause of a job?!" Boodooram said in be­tween her snif­fles.

She said the fam­i­ly had planned to vis­it Cau­ra Riv­er to­mor­row but the un­avail­abil­i­ty of some fam­i­ly mem­bers had post­poned the out­ing.

Boodooram is the third prison of­fi­cer to be mur­dered in the past four months.

On Oc­to­ber 8 Richard Sandy was shot dead in a bar in south Trinidad. On Oc­to­ber 26, Glen­ford Gard­ner was killed at Sea Trace, Bagatelle, Diego Mar­tin. Fol­low­ing those killing prison of­fi­cers who had al­ready ap­plied for their Firearm Users Li­cense were told that they will be giv­en pri­or­i­ty by the Po­lice Ser­vice, while the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) and the Gov­ern­ment ne­go­ti­ate oth­er leg­isla­tive is­sues aimed at pro­tect­ing prison of­fi­cers both on and off du­ty. The as­sur­ances giv­en to the as­so­ci­a­tion dur­ing a marathon meet­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and then act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er William Alexan­der.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the killing, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ed­mund Dil­lon con­demned it. Dil­lon not­ed that sac­ri­fices are be­ing made on a dai­ly ba­sis by law en­force­ment per­son­nel who are putting their lives on the line to main­tain law and or­der in the coun­try. The min­is­ter al­so ex­pressed his sin­cere con­do­lences to the rel­a­tives, friends and col­leagues of Boodooram.