Beckles calls for action after police station killing

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has called for ac­tion fol­low­ing the killing of Act­ing Cor­po­ral Anusha Ever­s­ley in­side the San Fer­nan­do City Po­lice Sta­tion.

In a state­ment, Beck­les said the in­ci­dent has raised con­cerns about safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. She ques­tioned the abil­i­ty of au­thor­i­ties to pro­tect cit­i­zens if of­fi­cers are not safe with­in a po­lice sta­tion.

She said the in­ci­dent re­flects on­go­ing is­sues re­lat­ed to crime and the re­sponse by those re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

She re­ferred to com­ments made on April 17 by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who stat­ed that law en­force­ment can­not pre­dict and pre­vent every homi­cide but aims to pro­tect the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion with avail­able re­sources. Beck­les said the state­ment rais­es con­cerns about the ap­proach to crime.

Beck­les said cit­i­zens should ex­pect safe­ty in all lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing po­lice sta­tions.

She al­so ad­dressed the State of Emer­gency in place since April 2025, stat­ing that it has not ad­dressed crime pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion or de­ter­rence.

Beck­les said the con­tin­ued use of emer­gency mea­sures with­out re­sults has con­tributed to con­cern among cit­i­zens.

She called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ad­dress the coun­try on the de­vel­op­ments.

Beck­les said lead­er­ship re­quires ac­count­abil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tion in re­sponse to in­ci­dents in­volv­ing crime.

She said there is a need for a na­tion­al ap­proach to crime, in­clud­ing polic­ing, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, jus­tice process­es and so­cial pro­grammes.

Beck­les said the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion re­quires ac­tion and a re­sponse from au­thor­i­ties.

She said the Op­po­si­tion is call­ing for mea­sures to ad­dress crime and im­prove pub­lic safe­ty.