OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar says threats against his deputy com­mis­sion­er could be an at­tempt to in­tim­i­date the se­nior of­fi­cer and the prison ser­vice.

Over the week­end, Guardian Me­dia ob­tained a video that sur­faced on so­cial me­dia fea­tur­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Caraspe’s name on a sheet of pa­per, ac­com­pa­nied by a date and a threat­en­ing mes­sage say­ing “don’t play”.

The video in­clud­ed a mu­sic track be­lieved to be from the Port-of-Spain gang Sixx.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ra­moutar, who is set to re­tire soon, said the po­lice, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the prison ser­vice, are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, he said he is un­cer­tain about what mo­ti­vat­ed the threat against one of his se­nior of­fi­cers.

“We are search­ing with the po­lice...cy­ber po­lice re­al­ly, but we have no clues as yet. Noth­ing on where it came from, what’s the mo­tive. I can guess the mo­tive is to in­tim­i­date and put fear, I can on­ly guess that, but we have noth­ing at all,” Ra­moutar said.

He said the threat may al­so be an at­tempt to scare his suc­ces­sor.

“I could guess it is to try to put some fear in the per­son com­ing to take over,” Ra­moutar said.

Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don said over the week­end that while the video high­light­ed the dan­gers prison of­fi­cers face, it was not par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing.
Gor­don said de­spite the video sur­fac­ing and be­ing shared, prison of­fi­cers were un­fazed.

“We are not par­tic­u­lar­ly more con­cerned than we al­ready are as it re­lates to the safe­ty of our mem­bers and oth­er of­fi­cers,” Gor­don said.

“To be very hon­est, threats are ba­si­cal­ly al­most a dai­ly oc­cur­rence in the life of a prison of­fi­cer. It’s a con­stant con­cern that prison of­fi­cers have, but it’s al­so the con­stant en­vi­ron­ment we face,” he added.

Gor­don said he hoped those peo­ple who were threat­en­ing prison of­fi­cers would be found and brought to jus­tice.