CoP hails significant breakthrough in officer’s case

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has de­scribed the di­rec­tive to charge a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer with the mur­der of act­ing Cpl Anusha Ever­s­ley as a “sig­nif­i­cant break­through” in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The com­ment came hours af­ter the in­struc­tion to charge the 28-year-old was is­sued by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard. Charges of rob­bery with vi­o­lence, traf­fick­ing of firearms and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion were al­so ex­pect­ed to be laid against the of­fi­cer. How­ev­er, he was not yet of­fi­cial­ly charged last night af­ter of­fi­cers un­cov­ered fresh ev­i­dence in the case which they need­ed to ver­i­fy.

Re­fer­ring to the en­tire sit­u­a­tion as the “height of be­tray­al” dur­ing a ra­dio talk show yes­ter­day, he al­so is­sued a warn­ing to all po­lice of­fi­cers that no acts of trans­gres­sion would be tol­er­at­ed.

He ap­plaud­ed the de­vel­op­ments on Tues­day, say­ing, “We made some very sig­nif­i­cant break­throughs. We re­cov­ered a large quan­ti­ty of the firearms that was stolen. And I am pleased to tell T&T that with­in the past 48 hours, one of the main sus­pects, who is al­so a mem­ber of the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, we re­ceived in­struc­tions to charge him for the mur­der of his col­league. That, in my view, is the height of be­tray­al.”

On Sun­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as “an in­ter­nal be­tray­al” on Sun­day.

Yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro added, “I just want to send a mes­sage to all the per­sons out there, es­pe­cial­ly po­lice of­fi­cers. You wear the badge of a po­lice of­fi­cer, whether it’s tran­sit po­lice, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, spe­cial re­serve po­lice, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, or even reg­u­lar po­lice. When we put on that badge, we make an oath to pro­tect and serve the per­sons of T&T. And when you be­tray that trust, we will have ac­com­mo­da­tion for you with re­in­forced bars and 24-hour se­cu­ri­ty. And you will be get­ting three square meals, trust me.”

Gue­var­ro said he was al­so hope­ful that in­for­ma­tion from the cit­i­zen­ry will lead to a lot more of the stolen firearms be­ing re­turned.

In the mean­time, Crime Stop­pers has of­fered a $100,000 re­ward for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest of the per­sons re­spon­si­ble for Ever­s­ley’s mur­der. A $5,000 cash re­ward is al­so be­ing of­fered for the re­cov­ery of each stolen firearm.

Ever­s­ley, 42, was dis­cov­ered dead at the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters, La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, around 4.40 am on Sun­day. She was a moth­er of three chil­dren, aged 18, 15 and sev­en, and had over 19 years of ser­vice. An au­top­sy re­vealed she was beat­en and stran­gled to death.

Asked about the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the TTPS and the T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS), Gue­var­ro called it a “very con­vo­lut­ed sys­tem.” He ex­plained that while the TTPS re­mained un­der the am­bit of the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, the TTMPS was un­der the au­thor­i­ty of the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

As part of the un­fold­ing de­vel­op­ments on Tues­day, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), Mu­nic­i­pal, Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave for the du­ra­tion of the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

In a sur­prise move that caught both Gue­var­ro and Sagram­s­ingh off-guard, the let­ter as­sured that the di­rec­tive was not an im­pu­ta­tion on Sagram­s­ingh’s char­ac­ter but was aimed at en­sur­ing trans­paren­cy as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gressed.

Ad­mit­ting the con­tin­ued leaks of sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion from with­in the TTPS was a se­ri­ous bug-bear for law en­force­ment and had been caus­ing him sig­nif­i­cant angst, Gue­var­ro said his at­tempts to shield vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and pre­vent false nar­ra­tives from be­ing per­pet­u­at­ed in the pub­lic were be­ing frus­trat­ed. He said when mis­lead­ing in­for­ma­tion is pub­lished by peo­ple he la­belled “key­board war­riors,” it on­ly in­creas­es the pub­lic’s dis­trust in the TTPS.

Reaf­firm­ing the adop­tion of a ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy on po­lice cor­rup­tion, he ar­gued, “There are hard-work­ing, right-think­ing po­lice of­fi­cers who are fight­ing to main­tain the trust of the pub­lic, and the mi­nor­i­ty of them are caus­ing us prob­lems.”

Point­ing to the fear of crime which con­tin­ues to per­me­ate the mind­set of the so­ci­ety, the top cop ac­knowl­edged, “Even now, when you see a re­duc­tion in crime, by virtue of look­ing at the sta­tis­tics, per­sons are find­ing it hard to be­lieve that.”

This, he said, was not bring­ing com­fort to any­one.

Asked if he be­lieved the TTPS need­ed to be mil­i­tarised now, he avoid­ed an­swer­ing di­rect­ly. In­stead, he cit­ed sev­er­al in­stances of of­fi­cers who had been shot with­in re­cent times by gun-tot­ing crim­i­nals.

He said, “It is on­ly when you look down the bar­rel of a gun, then you un­der­stand the sober­ing re­al­i­ty of what we face every day as of­fi­cers. I sup­port my of­fi­cers one hun­dred per cent in do­ing the right thing in a law­ful man­ner.”