A ROUTINE patrol for a Ministry of Education safety officer at Belmont Secondary School (formerly Belmont Junior Secondary School) on Friday could have ended far worse after coming face to face with two gunmen on the school compound.

The safety officer, who Newsday chose to keep anonymous for security reasons, spoke about the incident that happened around 9 am.

As a result of the incident, the school was dismissed before 10 am. The Belmont Police Station is located metres away from the school and officers arrived on the scene quickly. It is uncertain why the gunmen were on the school compound.

When Newsday visited the school after 11 am, the safety officer was visibly shaken.

He said, “I was doing one of my routine patrols on the compound to ensure that students are safe. I was heading east to the farm area and there was a blind spot to the building…when I turned the corner I just bumped into two gunmen.”

The safety officer initially thought it was students, but then realised otherwise.

“They had t-shirts over their faces…but I thought it was students so I was a bit surprised because we bumped into each other literally and then one of them shouted at me, ‘Who is you, who is you.’

"I looked down and realised they had pistols which looked like glocks.”

The safety officer said one of the men was aggressive.

[caption id="attachment_1013414" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Fire officers visit the compound of the Belmont Secondary School, Belmont, Port of Spain, after the school's saftey officer encountered two masked gunmen on the grounds during school hours on Friday morning. - Jeff K. Mayers[/caption]

“One of the men seemed on a next level. For some reason, he seemed to want my head so he was telling the other guy, bumping him and trying to tell him, ‘Give the man one quick.’”

This is when the safety officer put his hands in the air.

While all this was unfolding, a class was in progress nearby.

“There was a class going on next to me where the students were unaware of the situation. It was so eerie. I had to try and stay calm to not alert the gunmen in such a way because, when people are scared, they react to situations differently.”

The gunmen wanted the safety officer to go to the back of the building, but the latter refused. The gunmen told him to walk away and at this point he was expecting the worst and thinking about the lives of the students.

“I was just thinking about being shot in my back at this point. While I was walking away I was trying to alert students without verbal (remarks), but just doing hand signals. They weren’t as responsive as I would have liked, so then I had to shout at some point.

"The police response was good. I saw police about 200 metres away with their weapons drawn rushing onto the compound, but I don’t know how those guys escaped so quickly.”

President of the school’s parent-teacher association Shurlanda Malcolm said school officials had been asking the Minist