Prisoner beaten unconscious on Independence Day succumbs

Jun 11, 2018 News

Shawn Thom, the 22-year-old prisoner, who was found in an unconscious state in the Camp Street Prison on Independence Day, has died.
Thom succumbed yesterday at the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he was admitted on May 26, after he was found unconscious, and with face swollen.

The now dead, Junior Dunn aka Shawn Thom at the GPHC Intensive Care Unit.

Thom’s mother, Mrs. Isles) had expressed suspicion about the circumstances surrounding her son’s hospitalisation.
Shawn Thom, as the victim is known in the prison system, is really Junior Dunn according to his mother. He was serving a four-year prison sentence for possession of guns and ammunition. Thom’s mother said he told her that he was wrongly accused.
Thom’s mother claimed to have received a call from her son on the morning of Friday May 25, telling her that he was attacked by three prisoners. He also said that he inflicted injuries to one of them.
Thom reportedly also told his mother to go to the Prison Headquarters on Brickdam and tell them what had happened, and that he was in danger.
Mrs. Isles said she did not take her son’s issue seriously at the time, since she felt that he talk to prison staff and get his problem sorted out.
That afternoon, Mrs. Isles reportedly received another call from someone telling her to come to the prisons with a lawyer to see what was happening with her son.
She then went to the prisons and was told by Prison officers that everything was ‘ok’ with her son.
On Saturday, Mrs. Isles claimed to have received yet another call from the same individual, asking her if she wanted her son to die, and why she was not coming to see what was happening to him.
Mrs. Isles said the individual told her that her son was handcuffed in a cell with three other inmates who had beaten him to the head with what looked like crowbars.
This time, she asked her eldest son to go and find out what was wrong with Thom.
Thom’s brother allegedly approached the Prison Authorities, and was told his brother was sick and they would take him to the hospital. Thom was then taken to the GPHC in a semi-conscious state.
When this publication reached out to Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels at that time, in relation to claims that Prison Officers might have had something to do with Thom’s state at the time, Mr. Samuels said, prison officers are in no way involved with what happened to Thom.
He also confirmed that Thom was in an altercation with three prisoners, one of whom he stabbed. That prisoner was taken to GPHC where he was admitted and received treatment for his injuries.
Kaieteur News was told that the Guyana Police Force was investigating, and would now have to take statements from the prison officers who were tasked with taking care of Dunn. They would also have to question the prisoners who were in his cell.