— Camp St CoI hears

By Svetlana Marshall
EMPLOYING the bucket brigade technique, a number of prisoners broke out of the Old Capital Block of the Camp Street Prison to bring much-needed relief to their fellow inmates who were trapped in the burning Capital ‘A’ Block during the prison riot.

This method proved effective in the eyes of Chriswayne La Rose, a fireman attached to the Guyana Fire Service Headquarters at Stabroek.

La Rose, a sub-officer, had accompanied Compton Sparman, the Officer-in-Charge of Operations at the Guyana Fire Service, to the Georgetown Prison at Camp Street when a riot broke out on March 3, 2016. On Tuesday he appeared before the three-man Commission of Inquiry (CoI) led by Justice James Patterson, and was cross-examined by the Commission’s Counsel, Excellence Dazzell; Head of the Bar Association, Christopher Ram; Attorney-at-Law Dexter Todd, and Joint Services Attorney Eusi Anderson.

Grilled by the Commission’s Counsel, La Rose disclosed that several prisoners had formed a bucket brigade during the inferno. Reflecting on the occurrences of March 3, 2016, La Rose recalled that at approximately 11:30h he was informed of the fire. Upon arrival on the scene with the Officer-in-Charge, La Rose recalled, he saw fire appliances in position on Camp and Bent Streets.

“They had already arrived and they were making preparations to enter the compound,” he posited.

Even as the firemen geared themselves for what turned out to be a raging fire in the Capital ‘A’ Division, Sparman and La Rose entered the compound. The sub-officer told the Commission that he had observed fire and smoke emanating from the division in question.

CHAOTIC
“It was pretty chaotic. There were rioters, prisoners cursing and hurling insults…they were behaving in a chaotic manner,” La Rose said, as he attempted to paint a picture of the atmosphere in the prison when he entered the compound.

At one stage, he said, the hose line had to pass through the eastern fence as the firemen engaged the fire. “They proceeded to make preparations, in fact, to go up to where the fire was,” he recalled, adding that there was a slight delay as the firemen were required to receive the “go head” from the prison authorities who were on the ground.

It was explained that the environment had to be deemed safe before permission was granted. Once that was done, La Rose said, the team of firefighters proceeded up the stairs, but were faced with another hurdle –- the western door of the affected block was locked.

“I observed prison officers attempting to open that door. They started with a key that failed, stepped back, and after a minute or so, then advanced disc cutter, using that to try and open the door; but that failed as well.”

Due to the lack of access to the interior of the Capital ‘A’ Block, La Rose said, the operational team then proceeded to use the hose line “to do some level of cooling, using the window openings”.

“The window openings were grilled, so that’s where they tried to get water into the area to start initiating the extinguishing process,” he said. He noted that the fire was not extinguished.

They reportedly continued for a period, up until several prisoners broke out of a neighbouring block.

“There is an adjacent cell block which is pretty much at the northern end, adjacent to cell Block A; and those prisoners within that environment…were pretty much riotous…and at one point they became so riotous that they started to break the southern wall that was close to Capital A Block. They broke through it,” he explained.

The firefighters were subsequently instructed to retreat, La Rose told the Commission.

INTERACTION
“I saw them (prisoners) speaking to the prison officials…I couldn’t really understand what they were saying because of the screams…they then climbed from the Old Capital to Capital A, and that is when we completely retreated from that area to a safe zone within that compound,” he further pointed out.

Nevertheless, another attempt to open one of the doors to the Capital ‘A’ Block proved successful with the use of a key. The hose line, which was still charged at that time, was used to douse the area, but the prisoners subsequently took over, La Rose said.

“The prisoners took over…. They used… they had buckets, they had five-gallon containers…they used water from within their cell block…and they used it to throw water within the cell…and a number of them then entered Capital A,” he detailed.

He said some of the prisoners that entered the Capital A block firstly removed two bodies. “Then when they re-entered, they started evacuating… they evacuated six inmates who were badly burned, but then (the evacuation) ceased…”

La Rose said he subsequently entered the Capital ‘A’ Block, and what his eyes beheld still traumatises him to this day. “To the right, there was almost a pile of them. It was very gruesome…probably six or seven, I didn’t count…huddled together, burned badly. Looking through to the back, you could see bodies on the ground. One, it would appear that the head was removed from the body.”

La Rose said he had witnessed burnt remains in the past, but never to the magnitude of those seen on March 3 at the Camp Street Prison.

Attorney Christopher Ram pressed La Rose for more answers. Drawing La Rose’s attention to the signed statement he provided to the Commission, Ram pointed out to La Rose that he said the prisoners on the first floor of the adjacent block were allowed to use the hose.

Ram’s question, therefore, was: who had allowed the prisoners to use the hose? In response, La Rose explained that there were about two or three prison officers present at the time, but they had stepped back, allowing the prisoners to use the hose.

“How effective would you say the role of those prisoners was in rescuing injured inmates?” was another question put to the fireman. His response was: “They were effective, they were effective.”