No ar­rests have been made fol­low­ing a gang clash at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) on Sat­ur­day, which re­sult­ed in the death of one in­mate and in­juries to two oth­ers.

Prison au­thor­i­ties con­firmed that the in­ci­dent was a gang-re­lat­ed al­ter­ca­tion in­volv­ing im­pro­vised weapons. In­mate Brent Bap­tiste was stabbed to death dur­ing the fra­cas.

In re­sponse, the MSP was placed on lock­down by both po­lice and prison of­fi­cials.

Yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­vealed that homi­cide of­fi­cers and oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tors vis­it­ed the prison along­side the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons.

Sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als were in­ter­viewed, how­ev­er, no one has been de­tained as yet, and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.

Com­ment­ing on the mat­ter, for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, Com­man­der Garvin Heer­ah said the time has come to sep­a­rate gang mem­bers from the reg­u­lar prison pop­u­la­tion.

“Is there some sort of ri­val­ry for com­mand and con­trol and have our of­fi­cers who have been en­trust­ed to guard and de­fend the pris­ons now be­ing com­pro­mised? And this is a se­ri­ous con­cern. And there­fore, the head, the ex­ec­u­tive of our prison sys­tem and our Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must re­view with im­me­di­ate ef­fect the sit­u­a­tion with our pris­ons.

“We have to se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er the in­fra­struc­ture more so out­fit­ted with the tech­nol­o­gy and the sur­veil­lance of a new fa­cil­i­ty, a new cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty de­signed for hold­ing in­car­cer­at­ed gang mem­bers. It could be a prob­lem for us. It could be a chal­lenge for us, as we are see­ing, hav­ing known crim­i­nals, and known gang mem­bers mix­ing with an­oth­er type of crim­i­nals. I think we need to have a sep­a­rate and apart cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty for these gang mem­bers, and one that I said is out­fit­ted and de­signed spe­cif­ic to that, with the train­ing to treat with gang mem­bers be­hind bars,” he said.

He said vi­o­lent gang mem­bers be­hind bars could be a threat to prison of­fi­cers and there is a need for in­creased vig­i­lance.

He said due dili­gence, vet­ting, and the en­tire in­tel­li­gence sys­tem of the prison ser­vice need to be re­viewed.

“And I would call for an im­me­di­ate re­view of that. This did not hap­pen overnight. This was some­thing that has been up­on us. And we have to un­der­stand that we have to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion with ze­ro tol­er­ance to treat this if we con­tin­ue to take it light­ly if we con­tin­ue to deal with it pas­sive­ly, if we con­tin­ue to oc­cu­py our­selves and not treat this with pri­or­i­ty, this can be out of ... this is a tick­ing time bomb and can af­fect our sys­tem. We need to treat this with im­me­di­ate ac­tion and not give it any sort of oxy­gen to grow in­to some­thing that is un­con­trol­lable.”

An of­fi­cial state­ment from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a “fra­cas” in­volv­ing in­mates af­fil­i­at­ed with ri­val gangs. The con­fronta­tion took place with­in the prison com­pound, which hous­es some of the na­tion’s most high-risk in­mates.

Prison au­thor­i­ties stat­ed that the Emer­gency Re­sponse Unit was ac­ti­vat­ed and re­spond­ed prompt­ly, restor­ing or­der and con­tain­ing the sit­u­a­tion with­in a short pe­ri­od.

Videos cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia ap­peared to show in­mates chas­ing and at­tempt­ing to as­sault an­oth­er in­mate. In an­oth­er clip, a group of in­mates was seen seiz­ing a man and car­ry­ing him away. These record­ings, which have not been of­fi­cial­ly ver­i­fied, have sparked pub­lic con­cern and raised ques­tions about how record­ing de­vices are be­ing smug­gled in­to the prison.

Ef­forts yes­ter­day to con­tact the act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe and Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don for an up­date on the dead­ly in­ci­dent were un­suc­cess­ful.