POINTE BLANCHE--A police extraction team was used Saturday to remove a number of inmates from the Pointe Blanche prison, to prevent a disturbance there from escalating and to restore order at the prison.
Prison Director Rudsel Ricardo said the decision to summon the police to the prison had been taken by the management team Saturday morning in the wake of rowdy behaviour by prisoners Friday night and a failed attempt by two inmates around 8:30am Saturday to open the gates to some sections of the prison in their bid "to open the gates to other cells and free more inmates."
He said that inmates led by the Inmates Association had been staging a strike since Sunday, May 27, and had threatened and beaten inmates who wanted to work. As a result, prison management took the "necessary precautions" and locked down "all the inmates to protect those who wanted to and are working."
He said the Inmates Association had been given responsibility for distributing the meals, but its failure to appoint an inmate to get and distribute the meals cell by cell meant that inmates did not eat Friday evening and "the inmates became very rowdy, making a lot of noise and started fires" around 7:00pm because their meals had not been delivered to them by the guards.
They tore pieces of clothing and set them on fire in one of the corridors inside the prison.
"The police were called in and order was restored," Ricardo said.
However, around 8:30am Saturday, "when the watch commander and one of the nurses went to share medication to the inmates that needed their medication, two inmates pushed the gate on the watch commander and grabbed the keychain from him in order to open the gates to the other sections" and free more inmates. "Luckily they grabbed the wrong set of keys and could not open the gates to the other sections."
At that stage, the police were called to the prison again and "the inmates that caused the uproar" were extracted from the facility and transported to the Philipsburg police station and Simpson Bay police substation.
Ricardo said that after order had been restored on Saturday, the prison management team had held discussions with the inmates "to eventually have them get back to work as per normal."
Meanwhile, according to police spokesman Inspector Ricardo Henson, on being summoned to the prison, the police management immediately called in off-duty personnel to police headquarters, the Voluntary Corps St. Maarten VKS was alerted and the VKS in turn also immediately mobilised its members to assist the police.
He said a police extraction team led by the K-9 unit had been sent to the prison and had removed from their cells and relocated several inmates who were the main cause of the disturbance.
"Some inmates resisted during this operation. However, their resistance was quickly broken. Chief Prosecutor Hans Mos and Attorney General Taco Stein have been informed of the situation," Henson reported.
Source: http://www.thedailyherald.com/islands/1-islands-news/28436-tension-in-prison-gets-more-intense-.html
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