Cop challenges prisons' policy of giving guards guns

File photo -
File photo -

A POLICE OFFICER is challenging the authority of the Prison Commissioner to grant guns and ammunition to his subordinates.

PC Vishal Singh still has a bullet in his back from a shooting incident involving a prison officer in 2016.

He is contending the prison commissioner does not have the power under the Firearms Act to grant guns and ammunition to prison officers.

He will be asking the court to find a July 2016 policy of the prison service on issuing firearms to officers who are considered to be “constructively” on duty illegal and void.

Singh was shot on August 10, 2015, by a prison officer, at Guaico Trace Extension.

In his application for judicial review, he said he and three other police officers responded to a report of a suspect with a gun.

When they got to an apartment building at Damarie Hill, two of the officers went to the front of the apartment, a third went to the back and Singh was standing at the front door.

Singh heard a loud explosion and the door flew open. He and the other officers were confronted with several gunshots.

There was an exchange of gunfire and Singh was shot in the chest and back.

The suspect was also shot.

They were taken to the Sangre Grande hospital, where they were treated and discharged. Singh had to have further treatment and the shooting left a bullet lodged in his back.

In his application, he says the suspect has never been charged and it was claimed that the gun he had was given to him and authorised by the prison commissioner for his personal protection.

After he filed a freedom of information request for details on the firearm user’s licence (FUL) issued to the prison officer, a judge ordered the police to release the information. It was revealed that “there was no record at the firearms section pertaining to the prison officer which means he was never issued with a FUL.”

Singh’s application also says he was told that the day after the prison officer was given the gun, he accidentally fired it and the matter was reported to the Sangre Grande police station, but he was never charged or faced disciplinary action.

“Indeed, he was allowed to continue possessing the firearm which eventually was used to shoot the applicant and to date, he is still in possession of same,” the application says.

Singh filed a claim for assault against the prison officer. The prison officer did the same against him and the other police officers who were at the apartment building that day.

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"Cop challenges prisons’ policy of giving guards guns"

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