Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

For­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son says last week’s threat against Deputy Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe was in­tend­ed to re­mind Cor­raspe of the pow­er gangs wield in and out of prison while warn­ing him not to test their met­tle when he as­sumes of­fice.

Last Fri­day, the video in­clud­ing the threat and Cor­raspe’s name writ­ten on a piece of pa­per went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia.

Be­neath Cor­raspe’s name were the words, ‘Don’t Play’. The pa­per was sur­round­ed by three as­sault ri­fles. The video, cur­rent­ly be­ing viewed by the po­lice Cy­ber Crime Unit, prompt­ed a high-lev­el in­tel­li­gence brief­ing in­volv­ing dif­fer­ent units short­ly af­ter it sur­faced.

The threat is be­lieved to have orig­i­nat­ed from the Sixx gang.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Cor­raspe said he was un­able to speak pub­licly with­out the per­mis­sion of Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar. Cor­raspe is ex­pect­ed to suc­ceed Ra­moutar as Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er when he re­tires on Wednes­day af­ter serv­ing for 36 years.

“The fact that there’s a new com­mis­sion­er com­ing, they will try to in­tim­i­date him in all forms and fash­ion. It is just a way of send­ing a mes­sage to the in­com­ing com­mis­sion­er be­cause they don’t know how he’s go­ing to op­er­ate, or how he’s go­ing to per­form. It’s just an in­tim­ida­to­ry tac­tic, they warn you one time not to come with any strong-arm tac­tics,” Wil­son told Guardian Me­dia last week.

Po­lice said they al­so sus­pect­ed the threat was on­ly in­tend­ed as a “show of force,” rather than a warn­ing of an im­pend­ing threat. One of­fi­cer said de­spite their in­flu­ence be­hind bars, crim­i­nals did not want to give away the el­e­ment of sur­prise in their at­tacks. “They (crim­i­nals) don’t typ­i­cal­ly an­nounce their ac­tions be­fore­hand.

“Based on da­ta, the tar­get­ing of prison of­fi­cers usu­al­ly hap­pens af­ter some in­stance of vi­o­lence in the prison, this hasn’t hap­pened, but the threat is still cause for prison of­fi­cers to be on alert.” Wil­son, who served as com­mis­sion­er be­tween 2017 and 2021, has led the prison ser­vice dur­ing a pe­ri­od where threats against prison of­fi­cers were wide­ly re­port­ed.

Dur­ing his tenure in Au­gust 2019, a se­ries of threat­en­ing mes­sages on so­cial me­dia call­ing on gang mem­bers to kill “any two prison of­fi­cers” were post­ed. Asked if he had any ad­vice for Cor­raspe as a for­mer com­mis­sion­er, Wil­son urged him to be pa­tient in what poli­cies and mea­sures he hoped to im­ple­ment.

“It will take him about two or three weeks to set­tle down and then build the con­fi­dence to con­tin­ue. The pub­lic will be com­ing at you, of­fi­cers will be com­ing at you to see how you are op­er­at­ing, and the in­mates will be com­ing at you to test you out. Take ba­by steps, you can’t just come in and change every­thing overnight.”

Wil­son al­so urged prison of­fi­cers to car­ry out their du­ties with­out fear but with fair­ness in mind to­wards in­mates.

Of­fi­cers are easy tar­gets for crim­i­nals

While he was re­luc­tant to de­scribe prison of­fi­cers as be­ing “sit­ting ducks” to vi­o­lent gangs, Wil­son ad­mit­ted that prison of­fi­cers were par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to at­tacks when com­pared to oth­er branch­es of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices. Wil­son said while a ca­reer in any branch of law en­force­ment has its risks, crim­i­nals ap­peared to be more hes­i­tant in tar­get­ing po­lice of­fi­cers or mem­bers of the de­fence force as the con­se­quences could be se­vere.

“The el­e­ments don’t think that way for prison of­fi­cers. We are the eas­i­est tar­gets be­cause they think, ‘What can you do to me?’ The po­lice can ar­rest and charge some­one, but the prison of­fi­cer has to live with them for a num­ber of years.”

Short­ly be­fore the threat against Cor­raspe ap­peared on­line, po­lice were al­so threat­ened by mem­bers of the Re­sis­tance Gang. The threat was made via a What­sApp voice note af­ter four men be­lieved to be mem­bers of the gang were killed by po­lice in Up­per St Michael’s Road off St John’s Road, St Au­gus­tine.

How­ev­er, one of­fi­cer in the po­lice Gang In­tel­li­gence Unit (GIU), said there was no cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest po­lice were un­der se­ri­ous threat. He said while po­lice of­fi­cers were ad­vised to be on alert, the threat against Cor­raspe was con­sid­ered a “high­er pri­or­i­ty” giv­en the num­ber of prison of­fi­cers mur­dered over the years.

“There is a le­git­i­mate rea­son to plan and have cer­tain ex­er­cis­es in place to pre­pare when any prison of­fi­cer is be­ing threat­ened. This isn’t to say that the po­lice are not ex­posed to cer­tain threats, when you com­pare the num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers killed with the num­ber of prison of­fi­cers killed, the is­sue is clear.”

Re­fer­ring to an at­tack at the Barataria home of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Sher­win Bruce in Oc­to­ber 2023, the of­fi­cer said even se­nior prison of­fi­cers with as­signed se­cu­ri­ty could be tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals. Bruce was un­harmed in last year’s at­tack, but his dri­ver, Steve Phipps, was shot.

A po­lice source re­port­ed that the key to re­mov­ing the in­flu­ence and pow­er of gangs lay in clamp­ing down on un­reg­u­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly through cell­phone use. How­ev­er, a 2023 re­port not­ed that even with the in­stal­la­tion of cell­phone jam­mers, it was still pos­si­ble for phone calls to be made and at­tacks co-or­di­nat­ed.

Prison of­fi­cers mur­dered

• In Jan­u­ary 2024, Kendell Smith, 36, was gunned down in Sama­roo Vil­lage, Ari­ma.

• No­vem­ber 27, 2021, Trevor Ser­rette, 48, was killed at a pro­duce stall in Va­len­cia.

• Days lat­er, on No­vem­ber 29, 2021, Nigel Jones was gunned down in the pres­ence of his three-year-old daugh­ter in Siparia.

• In Sep­tem­ber 2020, Sher­win Fran­cis, 48, was gunned down at his Oa­sis Greens, Ch­agua­nas, home.

• On Oc­to­ber 5, 2020, Stephen Richard­son, 28, was shot and killed in Third Com­pa­ny, Princes Town.

• Oc­to­ber 8, 2020: Joel Ram­soon­dar, 30, was fa­tal­ly shot out­side his In­di­an Walk, Princes Town home.

• On Jan­u­ary 28, 2018, prison of­fi­cer II De­ven­dra Boodooram was gunned down as he drove out of the Fred­er­ick Street Re­mand Yard.

• In Oc­to­ber 2018, Supt Wayne Jack­son was shot and killed at his Mal­abar home.

• On Oc­to­ber 17, 2018, Dar­ren Fran­cis was killed at Hin­dus­tan Vil­lage in Princes Town.

• On Oc­to­ber 8, 2017, Richard Sandy was shot dead at a bar in south Trinidad.

• Oc­to­ber 26, 2017, Glen­ford Gard­ner was killed at Sea Trace, Bagatelle, Diego Mar­tin.

• In Feb­ru­ary 2016, Fitzal­bert Vic­tor, 32, was shot and killed as he washed his car out­side his Priz­gar Lands, Laven­tille, home.

• Ju­ly 17, 2015: An­dell Primus, 27, shot and killed in Mor­vant.

• In No­vem­ber 2015, Supt David Mil­lette was killed while sit­ting in his car near his Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant, home.

• In Ju­ly 2015, An­dell Primus was shot dead in Red Hill, Mor­vant, and pulled out of his ve­hi­cle. • In June 2014, Do­minique Bernard, 37, was mur­dered at his girl­friend's Clax­ton Bay home.

• No­vem­ber 7, 2013, Andy Rogers, 42, was shot and killed at his Mal­abar, Ari­ma, home.

• Au­gust 21, 2010: Rey­nard Par­ris, 21, dies at EWM­SC af­ter be­ing shot in Mal­abar.

• Ju­ly 6, 2010, prison of­fi­cer Mar­vin Di­az, 35, was gunned down while leav­ing a club in Gas­par­il­lo Junc­tion with friends.

• June 10, 2010: Er­ic Sim­mons, 53, shot dead in Laven­tille.

• March 28, 2010: Bernard Thomas, 36, shot dead in To­co.

• Jan­u­ary 23, 2010: Nata­ki Hal­loway, 32, stran­gled in Gas­par­il­lo.

• No­vem­ber 7, 2009: Ian See­gob­in, 35, shot and killed in Arou­ca.

• June 18, 2008: An­im Joseph, 31, shot dead in St Joseph.

• March 17, 2005: Anslem Paul, 49, shot dead in Laven­tille.

• May 4, 2003: Win­ston Sandy, 35, shot dead in Laven­tille.

• De­cem­ber 12, 2001: Atwell Sandy, 32, shot dead in Cas­cade.

• Feb­ru­ary 25, 1998: Ju­nior Hold­er, 51, killed in Ch­aguara­mas.

• Au­gust 14, 1993: Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Michael Her­cules, 58, was shot and killed in Barataria.

• April 7, 1990: Jaichan Goolcha­ran, 42, was killed by an in­mate while on du­ty.