By Shauna Jemmott

AS PRISON officers continue to testify before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Georgetown Prison riots that occurred between March 2 and 4, testimony continues to tell that life isn’t the same anymore for any of the officers who worked within the walls of the Georgetown Prison on that fateful day.Still traumatised from the events of March 3, when 17 prisoners died in a fire at the Capital A block of the Georgetown Prison, Cadet Officer Udistair Holligan said on Friday that the events had taken a psychological toll on him, and he is left asking himself many questions for which he cannot find answers.
Holligan, a Task Force Commander within the Prison Service, said that he and other officers had tried desperately to open the door for the screaming, trapped prisoners to get out, even though the men had minutes before thrown faeces, urine and a peppery substance on them, yet prisoners are showing ingratitude and are threatening to take him and his family out.

Holligan said though he tries his best, he is constantly confronted with the haunting thought that his best was not good enough to save 17 lives. Coupled with that, his life and the lives of his nuclear family, even his mother, are being threatened, with prisoners shouting to him that they know where he lives; one even shouting aloud his correct address in the midst of death threats.

The officer told the CoI that he is commander of the Task Force at the Timehri Prison, and on the morning of March 3, he was called by the officer in charge at Timehri and given an order to muster his ranks and report to the Georgetown Prison.
Upon reaching Georgetown Prison, he met with Director of Prisons Carl Graham and Officer-in-Charge at Georgetown Prison, Kevin Pilgrim, who briefed him that a search would be conducted for contraband items in the new capital block.

The ‘Task Force’ is set aside to assist in the search for contraband, among other responsibilities within the local prison; and on March 3, he and Hutson were commanders of the task force of between 25 and 30 persons at the Georgetown Prison.
He said that sometime after 09:45 hrs, they instructed prisoners to get their belongings and vacate the dormitories in the new Capital block in groups of five.

He said a group was set aside to extract alleged ringleaders, who were responsible for influencing the riot on the previous night (March 2), and his team visited Capital A.

Inmates were asked to gather their belongings and approach the western door in orderly manner, exiting the building in groups of five.

BLOCKED DOOR
He said he and Hutson attempted to open the door, but found it difficult when they tried using the keys, “as if the door was joined inside.” He said the door could have possibly been blocked with a piece of wood or a cork, so Cozier, another Georgetown Prison staff, was sent by the Deputy Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, to open the door with a “cutter.”

While Cozier made his way, a prisoner, Randolph (Randy) Marques (who perished in the fire), said: “Mr Holligan, ya’ll could open the door”, and the officers opened the door with the keys. He assumed that the door was opened after the prisoners had removed whatever element they used to block the door.

As the prisoners exited as ordered, officers directed them to the search area. Holligan said “at first it was going smooth” and the officers were able to identify the ring leaders for the unexpected takedown. They first extracted prisoner Steve Allicock and everything went well. After Collison was extracted, prisoner Shaka McKenzie (who also perished in the fire) started behaving disorderly and was quite confrontational, even rushing into Holligan’s face.

The officer said McKenzie even pushed him and “I then pushed him back into the dormitory and secured the door.” At that time, other inmates were approaching the door to exit the division as ordered, but McKenzie “started going on, and he started arming himself with improvised weapons, and I heard Mr. Hutson say “weapons.”

He said that at this time McKenzie was pushing the door and officer Hutson shouted an order to “lock the door!”
THROWING OF URINE
Another officer, whose name was given as Lyken, locked the door after the prisoner was armed with improvised weapons (bed posts) and was pushing them through the door. The prisoner was joined by other prisoners, who also verbally abused the prison officers and threw on them urine and faeces mixed with pepper.

“I was hit with urine…some got on the side of my face and my uniform,” Holligan told the commission. He said he proceeded to another area and changed his uniform, putting on a green jersey instead, before returning to the new Capital block.

“At Capital B, they met us with the same aggression, cursing; and they even throw stones at us,” said Holligan.
The officer related that Deputy Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, and Officer-in-Charge of The Georgetown Prison, Kevin Pilgrim, approached after the situation got out of control, and Samuels tried to talk to the prisoners to have them evacuate the Capital B division. After a while, the Capital B prisoners complied, and Holligan assisted in directing them down the stairs.

That was when they observed smoke saturating the Capital B dormitory and realised a fire had been lit through a hole created in the wall separating the two dormitories. The fire was put out with the use of extinguishers. Shortly after, he saw smoke arising out of Capital A, and shortly after he and other officers tried to open the Capital A door for the prisoners to exit to safety. The prisoners were crying for help.
Holligan said.

“It went from a controlled environment to an uncontrolled environment,” he related.

He said the Fire Service later arrived on the scene and tried using a hose to extinguish the blaze. The Capital B door was opened already, he said, and “I heard officers and inmates shouting to them: ‘Ya’ll could come through the hole! Come through the hole!’

“It was confusing. The place was filled with smoke, the fire was blazing out of control…everything just went haywire from then,” Holligan pointed out.

“It kinda left me traumatised,” the officer said, and added that in his attempts to save the prisoners, he failed, and found himself in a situation where he witnessed their burning to death instead.

“I heard inmates screaming…even though I tried to assist in trying to get the door open…. You [I] did your [my] job to the best, but you [I] didn’t do it good enough to assist on that day. It’s kinda hard,” the officer confessed.

He said he wonders from time to time, “If this thing goes to that level again, how can you [I] assist somebody? How could you preserve a life that is already lost?”

The officer said that although he experiences what appears to be severe psychological trauma, he has not received counselling, and no one has made those services available to him.