Man held with gun tells police: ”I have it for protection”

SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

A 39-year-old man found with a gun in Orop­une Gar­dens told po­lice he was car­ry­ing it “for pro­tec­tion” be­fore be­ing ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day night.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers from the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, work­ing with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, were pa­trolling around 9:20 pm along 4th Av­enue, Orop­une Gar­dens, when they ob­served a man act­ing sus­pi­cious­ly in a res­i­den­tial car park.

The man, from KP Lands, Cu­mu­to Main Road, was stopped and searched. Po­lice re­cov­ered a sil­ver-and-brown re­volver with six rounds of am­mu­ni­tion con­cealed in­side a white sling bag.

When the weapon was dis­cov­ered, the man re­port­ed­ly told of­fi­cers:

"Of­fi­cer I is not no crim­i­nal, I not on no bad­ness. I just have my thing to pro­tect my­self and my fam­i­ly."

En­quiries re­vealed the sus­pect did not hold a Firearm User’s Li­cence and was not ex­empt un­der Sec­tion 7 of the Firearms Act, Chap­ter 16:01.

He was ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion, in­formed of his le­gal rights, and tak­en to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion.

The case re­mains un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by of­fi­cers of the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion.