IDC escape reignites security fears

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Res­i­dents liv­ing near the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre (IDC) in Aripo are call­ing for tighter se­cu­ri­ty at the cen­tre af­ter 14 men es­caped on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, around 3.40 pm IDC of­fi­cers smelled smoke com­ing from the male hous­ing unit. When they en­tered, they were am­bushed and over­pow­ered.

Dur­ing a scuf­fle, 14 men forced their way out of the fa­cil­i­ty, some head­ing to the west­ern side of the com­pound and oth­ers to the south­ern fence.

Af­ter rais­ing an alarm, four of the men were held, two while try­ing to climb the fence and an­oth­er two out­side the com­pound.

A fifth man was held yes­ter­day morn­ing around 6.40 am by ASP Ram­pal­lard of the Air Sup­port Unit along with of­fi­cers of the North­ern North Task Force along the East­ern Main Road, Waller­field.

Po­lice warn that any­one as­sist­ing the es­capees is com­mit­ting a crim­i­nal of­fence and is sub­ject­ing them­selves to pros­e­cu­tion.

A me­dia re­lease by the TTPS said of­fi­cers of the North­ern North CID, North­ern North Task Force, Pin­to Po­lice Sta­tion, Mal­abar Po­lice Sta­tion and IDC of­fi­cers, spear­head­ed by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin and led by ACP Ve­na But­ler and Supt Steve McKen­zie, are con­tin­u­ing the hunt for the re­main­ing men.

They are be­ing sup­port­ed by the Air Sup­port Unit, In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), Ca­nine Unit, Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice K-9 Unit, Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF), Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, a res­i­dent of Trinidad Road, Waller­field, said the fact that es­capees were found in the area on Sat­ur­day and have been seen in the sur­round­ing ar­eas in the past fol­low­ing pre­vi­ous es­capes has him wor­ried about his safe­ty.

Un­der 15 na­tion­al foot­baller Achilles Nel­son re­called one of the de­tainees lit­er­al­ly kick­ing down the door to his home seek­ing refuge.

Try­ing to as­sure him he was no threat, the de­tainee re­port­ed­ly told those at home: “No trou­ble, no trou­ble” be­fore flee­ing.

“He just start­ed kick­ing down the han­dle of the door, and he broke it straight off the edge. And then he threw the door down and fell on top of it. When he come in the house, he start­ed to walk up to my sis­ter and when my big sis­ter saw he walk­ing up to my lit­tle sis­ter, she just took her ar­row be­cause she was look­ing for a knife; she just took her ar­row and start­ed to tell him, ‘Come out of the house.’ And then he ac­tu­al­ly come out and he run.”

Nel­son said this was not his first en­counter with es­capees from the de­ten­tion cen­tre. Some four years ago him and his broth­er had to run out of a forest­ed area be­hind their home.

In June last year, five peo­ple es­caped, while in 2019, a to­tal of 19 peo­ple es­caped from the fa­cil­i­ty in three sep­a­rate in­ci­dents.

In No­vem­ber last year, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said there were is­sues faced by IDC work­ers which he hoped to ad­dress. He said one is the roof at the fa­cil­i­ty.

“There seems to be an is­sue with the roof­ing area where per­sons would have made their es­cape be­fore. We in­tend to fix that to pre­vent such a thing from hap­pen­ing again” he said then.

IDC of­fi­cers told Guardian Me­dia that those housed there are await­ing de­por­ta­tion and have been com­plain­ing about the con­di­tions for some time.

“This could have been worse, be­cause the sen­try on du­ty was not armed. If he had a gun, they could have over­pow­ered him, and things could have been much worse,” the of­fi­cer said.

De­ten­tion of­fi­cers are Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers who re­ceived spe­cial train­ing to work at the IDC. The term “De­ten­tion of­fi­cers” is not named in any of the sub­cat­e­gories of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, how­ev­er, they are sub­ject to the rules gov­ern­ing po­lice of­fi­cers.

Guardian Me­dia called and mes­saged De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge on the es­cape and plans to pre­vent fur­ther es­capees; how­ev­er, up to press time, there was no re­sponse.

The of­fi­cers told Guardian Me­dia that there are hous­ing is­sues that in­mates have raised re­peat­ed­ly in the past re­gard­ing in­suf­fi­cient ven­ti­la­tion.

Dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Hu­man Rights, Equal­i­ty & Di­ver­si­ty in 2018, the pan­el was told that the IDC was cre­at­ed in 2009 in re­sponse to the coun­try’s hu­man rights oblig­a­tion as a mem­ber of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty com­mit­ted to the ob­ser­vance of the fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights of every in­di­vid­ual.

It was agreed then that the IDC would fa­cil­i­tate for­eign na­tion­als found in breach of our im­mi­gra­tion laws in­stead of us­ing the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison as was done pre­vi­ous­ly. The com­mit­tee was told that the IDC was in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices as re­quired by the Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights, the In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Eco­nom­ic, So­cial and Cul­tur­al Rights, and the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights.