As the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the deadly prison riot at the Camp Street prison is underway, the first witness, Dwayne Lewis is alleging that prison officers refused to open the door to let prisoners out during the fire, which claimed the lives of 17 inmates on March 03.

Lewis, who is on remand at the Camp Street prison on a manslaughter charge, testified before the three member commission this morning, where he revealed that while the fire was in progress, six canisters of tear gas were thrown inside the room by prison officers.

He explained that prior to the fire being set, he and other prisoners were ordered out of the Capital ‘A’ division and while he was packing his belongings, he heard someone say “lock the door.”

“When the first set of prisoners came out and they escorted them — is when they pass the order that let them lock the door and let them die in there,” Lewis said.

He could not say who passed the order but noted that prisoners requested that the door be opened and identified one “Patterson” as the officer who refused to open the door.

Lewis claimed that the fire started inside the remand section of the building and that inmates tried to quell it but had no water to do so. As such, he noted that some of the prisoners then broke a wall which separates the ‘A’ and ‘B’ division in order to escape.

“After the hole was broken and we applied for water to control the fire, there wasn’t any water coming to the facility at that time. After that 6 cans with tear smoke was thrown into the building,” Lewis told the CoI.

He said that “after the tear smoke was thrown, it started to burn our eyes and skin, so we run to a small ventilated area and we start calling for help…but we haven’t got any response from outside sir. The fire eventually grew bigger and bigger and took over the whole cell causing some of the inmates to be badly burnt up. I eventually ran to the front entrance calling for help. The door was not open as yet then I saw the hole on the wall with some fire still blazing around it and I eventually made my escape through there and receiving burns to my lower abdomen.”

“When I came out in the capital B division and I walked down the step and I fell down. That is all.”

The inmate claimed that the prison officers did not attempt to extinguish the fire and that approximately 25 prisoners were locked in the dormitory at the time of the fire.

The Commission asked: “Did you at all see any attempt by the administration attempting to put out fire?” In response, Lewis said, “No Sir.”

According to Lewis, prior to the fire, some 40 prisoners were escorted out of the division in a peaceful manner, while others behaved disorderly, claiming that they were beaten by prison officers with a baton.

Lewis said that he saw one prisoner, whom he identified as Collis Collison, beaten to a state of unconsciousness by a prison officer. The CoI continues and more prisoners are expected to testify.