Municipal Police Service head sent on leave

Head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS), As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, has been sent on leave as part of the probe in­to the mur­der of Anusha Ever­s­ley and the theft of guns and am­mu­ni­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion on Sun­day.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the mat­ter to­day, Min­is­ter Ameen con­firmed the ac­tion.

She said it was an “ad­min­is­tra­tive di­rec­tive by PS (Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary) not to re­port for du­ty dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The min­is­ter de­scribed it as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.

She added, “It’s not a find­ing of mis­con­duct or li­a­bil­i­ty on his part.”

Min­is­ter Ameen al­so told Guardian Me­dia that, “While there is the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­der of Cpl Ever­s­ley and the stolen arms and am­mu­ni­tion, an ad­min­is­tra­tive re­port is al­so ex­pect­ed to de­ter­mine what went wrong from an ad­min­is­tra­tive stand­point in terms of chain of com­mand, su­per­vi­sion, pro­ce­dures etc., that may have been breached.”

She said they will use rec­om­men­da­tions from that re­port for im­prove­ment.

Ear­li­er to­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said a to­tal of 10 peo­ple re­main in cus­tody, and 43 firearms and over 900 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion have been re­cov­ered in the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the theft.