Two more Camp Street prisoners yesterday pointed fingers at Deputy Prisons Director Gladwin Samuels as being culpable for the deaths of 17 inmates who perished after the fire at the prison last month.
Inmates Carl Browne and Roy Jacobs, both testifying before the Commission of Inquiry into the men’s deaths, detailed actions that they say were taken by Samuels on the morning of March 3rd, when the fire was lit in the Capital A dorm at the prison.
The prisoners who have testified so far have said that an altercation between a task force that was carrying out a search and two inmates had led to the prisoners becoming uneasy and running back to the Capital A dorm, where the fire was lit.
Browne, who was the first to take the stand at the Department of Public Service building, resides in the Old Capital Division, located a few feet from Capital A, and he said after the remaining inmates ran back inside the Capital A dorm, he heard persons saying that a mattress had been lit.
Browne echoed another inmate’s claim that Samuels passed an order for them to close the door and leave the inmates to die. He related that Samuels then said something to an officer named Elliot, who along with other officers went up to the dorm with shields and sprayed tear gas. He said once that occurred, the little fire which had started, escalated into big flames.
According to another inmate, Roy Jacobs, who also testified yesterday, it was Samuels who threw the tear gas. Jacobs claimed that after inmate Shaka McKenzie had run back into building and the door was pulled in, Samuels “came out of the blue” and took over the operations. He said he then called for Jermaine Otto to exit, but Otto refused. Jacobs alleged there was an ongoing dispute between Otto and Samuels.
He related that following this, Samuels went around the side of the building, took out a bottle of tear gas and threw it inside, after which the area became smoky. He recalled that a mechanic had attempted to assist the inmates but he was instructed by Samuels to leave them because they started the fire and that they should be left to burn.
He said Samuels went back up to Capital B and reported seeing bricks being hurled at him and words being exchanged with an inmate. He said he heard a shot, followed by screaming.
Browne claimed that he was the one who instructed his fellow inmates to go out and help those trapped in Capital A but said he was unable to go with them because he is asthmatic and was thus affected by the smoke.
Browne related that they could feel the burn of the tear gas, even in their own dorm, and said the prison officials did not seem to be affected by it. He noted that one prisoner had been lucky to escape through the hole in the wall between Capital A and Capital B but speculated that after the gas was thrown officials had blocked the hole and came out.
Jacobs could not testify about the efforts of either the prisoners or prison officials to save the inmates as he said his division had been evacuated and he was moved to another building when the event escalated.
Browne at first denied seeing efforts being made by prison officials to open the door but later stated that they had only aided the prisoners who had broken out of their dorm to go to the inmates’ rescue. He said the officials did not assist until they began smelling human flesh burning.
Barbaric
Browne, who said he has so far served eight years of his 13-year sentence for murder, was asked by Commissioner Merle Mendonca about Samuels’ behaviour.
Samuels, who had been sent on leave following allegations made by prisoners about the role he played in the tragedy, was described by Browne as being “barbaric.”
According to Browne, the Deputy Director, who was once charged with manslaughter, is in the habit of intimidating inmates by telling them that he has killed once before and would do it again and that all he would have to do is write a statement.
During cross-examination, Joint Services attorney Selwyn Pieters suggested that Browne’s entire witness testimony was a lie—a claim which was vehemently denied by the inmate.
During an adjournment, Pieters later spoke of the “inflammatory headlines” published in relation to his client, Samuels, while stating that he has serious concerns about his reputation. He claimed that Samuels did not arrive at the prison until about half hour after the events had begun unfolding and, contrary to the testimonies of inmates, had not been leading the task force during the search. He said the claims being made by the prisoners were “false” and “damaging to the representation of the prison” and also “damaging to the stellar career of those valiant officers, those brave officers that go in there day in and day out to ensure not only the safety of the public but also the rehabilitation of those inmates and to ensure that those inmates come out in society much better than they went into prison when sentenced.”
Pieters stated that he is hoping Samuels will be called to lead testimony as early as today or tomorrow to defend himself against the statements being made by the inmates.
Rights
Browne said that fires being lit in the prison is normal as inmates use it as a means of getting the attention of the media, the government and other authorities. He added, however, that in the past these fires were put out without much incident as inmates would have buckets of water on standby.
He explained as well that these fires were not lit wildly, it was in fact something that was discussed before-hand among a small group of inmates, who he was unwilling to name. He did say that that they were the few that were willing to stand up for their rights.
The prisoner stated that he is one who “considers his constitutional fundamental rights to freedom” and revealed that he had escaped from prison twice before and is constantly plotting his escape.
He, however, denied involving other inmates in his plans to break out of the prison.
During his testimony, he told the commissioners that he was serving his time in three parts. This statement later gained meaning when, under cross-examination by Pieters, he admitted to having escaped prison twice—once in November, 1998, after which he was at large for 25 days, and then again in July, 2000. He was not caught again until 10 years later, in July, 2010.
“I was incarcerated in 1997, in 1998 I escaped,” Brown had stated matter-of-factly, under questioning by the Commission Counsel Excellence Dazzell. When murmuring erupted from the audience at his revelation, he responded with, “Yeah, I don’t accept violations.”
Security breach
The access by prisoners to cellphones has been a matter of interest since the beginning of the inquiry and Browne was questioned on how the devices manage to make their way into the prison system given the many checks carried out by officers. The inmate alleged that prison officers are the ones that bring the phones in and sell them to the prisoners, while stating that he paid $7,000 for his because he has “a proper phone,” the seventh he has acquired since his incarceration. He, like the prison witnesses before him, denied that the search carried out on the day before the fire had been incited by cellphones and marijuana being taken from the dorms. He further related that when the devices are taken away, the prisoners can pay to get them back.
After making these claims, Browne even went as far as to state that cellphones being in the prison are “a breach of security” and that “the entire [prison] administration should be fired.”
Footage withheld
Meanwhile, the proceedings yesterday saw Pieters face criticism surrounding the availability of video evidence to the tribunal.
At the beginning of the proceedings, questions were raised by Chairman of the Commission Justice James Patterson about a statement made by an online news medium that footage of the takedown of inmate Collis Collison had been shown to members of the media without first being issued to the tribunal. Pieters related that he had ordered his officer to make the footage available to the commission on Monday. He further told the Chairman, “Outside of the commission’s purview, I will decide how the state’s case is run and what I feel is not confidential and security related that goes into the public domain.” He did, however, state that he accepted the admonition of the commission and apologised for not having presented the footage.
Close to the end of the session, concerns were once again raised about the footage, this time by attorney Dexter Todd, who found issue with Pieters’ constant reference to the video footage during his cross-examination. Todd, who is representing an inmate, opined that Pieters was misleading the public by having them believe the entire footage of the incident had been made available to the tribunal when it in fact was not. He said the video was handed in parts which are not a representation of the entire scenario.
“The public must not be hearing these hearings and believe that the witnesses brought before the commission are misleading, they’re lying, and that video footages which have been presented to the commission and to the public… shows the entirety of the incident, which is a total, vicious, misrepresentation of the facts,” Todd said. “We’ve been allowed to see—and I’m sure the Bar Association would have joined me—I have been handed three videos. One of about two minutes, in which those videos, certain parts of where the actions of officers were done were totally blotted out. No one has an appreciation from the videos to see what presented itself before and all we saw was when the officers were doing certain things. No one saw who initiated, who did the confrontation first, who started it, nothing of that sort,” he added.
He further stated that Pieters is fully aware that a person’s declaration that they did not see something happen does not mean it did not occur.
Jacobs is expected to be called again today for further cross-examination.
