RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

The sus­pect in Wednes­day’s gun at­tack in which a prison of­fi­cer was shot and in­jured has been dis­charged from hos­pi­tal and is in po­lice cus­tody.

Po­lice yes­ter­day said the 22-year-old sus­pect was dis­charged yes­ter­day morn­ing and is as­sist­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors in their probe of the in­ci­dent, which is be­lieved to have been a pos­si­ble as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt on Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Sher­win Bruce.

They said the sus­pect, from La Canoa Road, San­ta Cruz, said he was shot by “friend­ly fire”, mean­ing he was ac­ci­den­tal­ly shot by one of his al­leged ac­com­plices or some­one he knew. The sus­pect was shot in the right shoul­der and was un­der po­lice guard at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex be­fore be­ing re­leased in­to po­lice cus­tody.

Snr Supt Mervyn Ed­wards, of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion, said in­ves­ti­ga­tors are al­so pur­su­ing sev­er­al leads and have searched sev­er­al homes and tak­en state­ments tak­en from peo­ple re­gard­ing the in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, the se­nior of­fi­cer said they are not close to lay­ing charges.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar said that the wound­ed prison of­fi­cer is “do­ing well”. He, how­ev­er, chose not to say whether the of­fi­cer was still at the hos­pi­tal or had been dis­charged due to se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons.

Ra­moutar said he is still await­ing a re­port from the po­lice on the sta­tus of their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent.

On Wednes­day at 7.05 am, prison of­fi­cer Steve Phipps ar­rived out­side Bruce’s Baratar­tia home to pick him up in a white Toy­ota For­tuner. While wait­ing for the se­nior prison of­fi­cer to come out, two cars—PCU 2093 a white Toy­ota Axio and PCH 4132, a gold Nis­san Almera—pulled up and three masked men ran out and be­gan shoot­ing at the un­marked prison ve­hi­cle.

Phipps told po­lice he bent down to avoid be­ing shot. He was, how­ev­er, hit in the up­per and low­er right arm.

A par­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers as­signed to the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force ar­rived on the scene and took the vic­tim to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

The Deputy Prison Com­mis­sion­er was un­harmed.

The shoot­ing was con­demned by the Prison Com­mis­sion­er, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent and Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion head, who called on all of­fi­cers in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices to be on “red alert” and stay vig­i­lant.