Essequibo cops pursuing December escapee from Mazaruni prison

Police in Essequibo have started a hunt to recapture a prisoner who escaped from the Mazaruni prison last December and has been wreaking havoc upon residents in his hometown, Bethany village.

Director of Prisons Dale Erskine told Stabroek News yesterday that the police are trying to capture Ronald Daniels called ‘Black boy’. He noted, however, that officers would not just randomly go in search of the man unless they receive direct leads or a position where the man could be found. He said that police in Essequibo received word that the man was visible in the community and so they are currently working with those leads to recapture him. The police are also working along with community members to locate where the man might be hiding out.

Erskine said leads were received shortly after the man escaped and ranks were forced to move to the area but even though they spent an entire night the man was still not found.

Daniels escaped over a month ago and up to now he is still able to evade capture by law enforcement authorities.

Erskine in an earlier interview told this newspaper that Daniels escaped from the prison on December 12 last year. According to him, Daniels was working in the prison kitchen and jumped the fence and escaped.

Daniels was serving a two-year sentence for break and enter and larceny sometime in 2005. One resident has since told Stabroek News that the community was in fear since the prisoner was still on the loose. That resident said too that while he had not heard of the man physically abusing anyone, community members, particularly children, were still fearful and some of them did not go to school many days because they were scared to walk alone.

In the last 13 months the Mazaruni prison has experienced three break-outs with the most recent nearly two weeks ago in which nine prisoners made a run for freedom.

A little over a year ago in November 2005, five prisoners escaped from the prison after ripping out wooden bars on their cell doors and cutting the chain link fence in the compound.

Anthony Macey, Otis Daniels, Harry Holder, Alvin Samaroo and Walter Ronald Wong managed to escape although they had no guns or other dangerous weapons. One of the men had been serving time for manslaughter, while the others were serving sentences for drug possession as well as larceny. Within days all of the men were recaptured. One of the men made it to Riverview, Goshen, Essequibo River after stealing clothing to change his appearance and taking a boat at Karau. Another escapee was caught at the New Amsterdam ferry stelling where he was going to board the late ferry. It is believed the man was dropped off at Bartica by his accomplices from where he got transportation that set him on his course for Berbice.

Following the most recent escape from the Mazaruni prison two Fridays ago by nine prisoners and their subsequent recapture, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee has said that there was something sinister about the break-out and promised that investigators would get to the bottom of it.

Last week Rohee set up a board of inquiry to conduct the official investigations into the circumstances surrounding the jail-break on Friday, January 12.

Erskine has confirmed that the board of inquiry started its work yesterday but was unable to say when the prisoners would be passed through the court to face charges of ‘escaping from lawful custody’. However he said police were still carrying out their investigations.