Police have been called in to investigate the source of a photo of a gun which was allegedly found in the Golden Grove Remand Prison recently.
Prison officials insist there was no gun but prisons officers are telling a different story, insisting the gun was found during a search of the Remand Prison by officers of the Maximum Security Prison.
Prisons commissioner Cecil Duke, through the communications department, issued a statement describing the report as “false, irresponsible, misleading, mischievous and unsubstantiated.”
The statement said the report was “designed to create fear and instability among members of the public and undermine the work that is being done by prisons authorities to maintain a high level of safety and security at our nation’s penal institutions.”
But prisons officers yesterday maintained the weapon was found during a search of the Remand Prison last Wednesday. They say MSP officers were asked to conduct the search since the “authorities did not want the remand prisons officers conducting the search.”
The gun was found in cell ten in the north wing in the “deep.” A cellphone with the numbers of senior prisons officers in its log was also found. The officer who found the gun “is now being accused of lying and is now scared,” prison guards said.
But Assistant Commissioner of Prisons in charge of operations, Dennis Pulchan, is insisting no gun was found. He told the T&T Guardian that “it is some unscrupulous prisons officer who is working in sync with an inmate who is doing this. Whoever the officer is creating that mischief does not belong in the system. The matter is now being investigated by the police to identify the perpetrator.”
Pulchan confirmed there was a search of the prison last Wednesday but he said: “I am the assistant commissioner of Prisons responsible for operations, all such information will come to me. Nothing of the sort came to my desk so there is nothing to investigate.”
Asked why there was a search of the prison, Pulchan insisted: “Such searches are a regular occurrence. They are done every week so it is basically routine. Other items were found, including cellphones, weapons and cigarettes, nothing that aren’t normally found.”
The very same prison sources who told the T&T Guardian about the gun also gave details about two footballs which were thrown over the walls of the Eastern Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre (ECRC) at Santa Rosa and which contained a number of contraband items, including marijuana.
The same release from the Prisons Service which denied a gun was found, confirmed that two footballs were thrown over the walls of the ECRC by “unknown persons” and that the “police had been called in to investigate the find.”