By Ariana Gordon

FIRE Chief Marlon Gentle is urging a deeper investigation into the deaths of two of the 17 inmates who were killed in the recent Camp Street Prison riot.He made the call during the second day of his testimony before the three-man Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Georgetown Prison riot. Gentle suggested that there be deeper investigation into the deaths of two of the 17 inmates who died during the riot on March 3. He said he did not visit the fire scene, but noted that from reports he received from his subordinates, an investigation should be conducted into the deaths of two prisoners, whose bodies were severely dismembered.

Describing the scene at the Capital ‘A’ Division as horrible, the Fire Chief said that one body was found headless, while another was found with its intestines protruding. This is not the first time that testimony was given before the Commission regarding the headless body.

“One body with the head removed from the torso at variant or good distance away…One body hunched on a toilet set with the insides out…the last two I alluded to need some more investigation,” said the Fire Chief.

Gentle, who worked for 15 years as a fire investigator, told the Commission that there is no way that the fire could have caused the head to come off of the torso, or intestines to protrude from the body.

Asked by Attorney for the Guyana Fire Service and the Guyana Police Force, Eusi Anderson, to explain why he sees the need for additional investigation, Gentle replied, “I am a trained fire investigator. I was trained at the Ontario Fire College…15 years (were) spent in investigation. The degree of destruction of the bodies and level of injuries…a head detached from body…the degree of damage from what I suspect it to be…even the violence of the mini explosion, the body is not supposed to lose internals.”

The Fire Chief provided his “honest opinion” on the situation. He said, “I believe, in my own honest opinion, that both of the bodies would have suffered other types of trauma than the fire; they were subjected to some level of force due to striking or stabbing or something.”

He said he found the scent to be “out of the ordinary,” since the bodies were not only burnt.

Gentle told the Commission that the Capital ‘A’ Division was primarily a concrete structure with galvanised roofing, metal bars, and stairs that were made primarily out of concrete.

Asked whether the building could be described as “combustible,” the Fire Chief said, “No sir, those are low combustibles.
“…I have seen a lot of things. The degree of destruction and the level of injuries the bodies would have suffered…the degree of damage that body would have sustained…even with the violence of that explosion, the body is not supposed to…” he added.

Asked to state what would have been responsible for such a highly combustible situation, Gentle said that based on his assessment, “combustible materials such as mattresses, bedding, clothing and the like, that are easily ignitable” were responsible for the fire spiralling out of control.

Additionally, he explained that the fact that there was “limited access” to the interior of the building, it was difficult for the fire to be contained easily. “As the materials ignite and the heat generates, they liberate vapours which are known as fire gases…the flash raises the temperature in that room to over a 1000 degrees in seconds, and that, in my own experience, is what happened,” the Fire Chief stated.

When burned, the combustible materials release a flammable vapour that caused a “flash” that instantaneously spiked the room’s temperature.

The fire of March 3 that resulted in the deaths of 17 inmates was the first experience of its kind for the firefighters; and according to the Fire Chief, not one of his officers could walk away from the incident forgetting what transpired.

Gentle recommended that the Prison Authorities look towards having automated fire suppression systems in the prisons.

Meanwhile, ‘A’ Division Police Commander Clifton Hicken, in his testimony before the Commission, said he believes that the Police Force was too restrained on March 3. He said that despite complying with the Standard Operating Procedures that govern such operations, “say I think we exercised too much restraint before going into action. I say this because the extent of which the prisoners destroyed the prison and how far they would have gotten, there was likelihood that because we allowed this to develop we could have had an imminent outbreak.”

He said that based on procedure, the Guyana Police Force cannot take control of the Georgetown Prison without the direction of the Director of Prisons. He said, too, that there is a need for a review of the SOPs for the joint services.

“My experience would have taught me that if three or four was difficult to handle, 100 would make it a more erroneous [sic] task. There is a reason for the restraint too: we cannot go in unless the Director of Prison decides so…it is his prison, (and) until he asks us to give (his officers) that type of support…”

Asked by Commissioner Dale Erskine whether Director of Prisons Carl Graham had requested assistance from the Police Force, Commander Hicken replied, “We were deliberating all the time, and then it reached to the boiling point; then he said ‘permission granted’.”

Additionally, Commissioner Merle Mendonca, based on Hicken’s statement, asked whether he would act differently if the situation recurs. The ‘A’ Division Commander said, “If I had to do this over, we’d gone in to action before. We are speaking to two things here…they were armed, so we could have had casualties in relation to the joint service….If this had happened in any other part of the hemisphere, there would have been tragedies.”

Hicken, under examination by Attorney Dexter Todd, said that prisoners had broken out from their cells. “I know that they broke out…I saw that…don’t know where they broke from…we took six prisoners to the hospital…after which I had an update from Deputy Commander…and was told that the barrier was breached and prisoners armed themselves and were in the yard.”

He said the prisoners were armed with metal and other tools, and when the Police arrived, rocks were hurled at them.

The CoI continues today with testimonies from officers of both the Guyana Fire Service and the Guyana Police Force.