Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Ger­ard Gor­don says the at­tempt­ed mur­der of an of­fi­cer on Fri­day night sym­bol­is­es that the coun­try is in cri­sis.

In a me­dia re­lease short­ly af­ter the at­tempt­ed shoot­ing, Gor­don post­ed on so­cial me­dia a call for of­fi­cers to be vig­i­lant and a re­minder to the au­thor­i­ties to pro­tect prison of­fi­cers.

“Let us be clear: Prison Of­fi­cers are un­der at­tack—and not just by crim­i­nals, but by the si­lence, in­ac­tion, and de­lay of those elect­ed to pro­tect and lead. The As­so­ci­a­tion has tak­en the State to court over the is­sue of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, a mat­ter that has dragged on for near­ly a decade. And yet, even as of­fi­cers are gunned down, hunt­ed, and ter­ror­ized, no mean­ing­ful change has been im­ple­ment­ed.”