Calls to move San Fernando Municipal Police head ignored before WPC killing, source says

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

At­tempts were made months ago to have the now-sus­pend­ed act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent in charge of the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion trans­ferred, but the move was nev­er ef­fect­ed.

The re­quest came from for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent of the T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (South), Ce­cil San­tana, who raised con­cerns about the of­fi­cer’s con­duct and lead­er­ship at the sta­tion—where WPC Anusha Ever­s­ley was mur­dered and the ar­moury cleared out on Sun­day.

A re­li­able source said San­tana sent cor­re­spon­dence to T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, who for­ward­ed the let­ter to the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (SASC) rec­om­mend­ing his trans­fer, but no ac­tion was tak­en.

Guardian Me­dia has ob­tained a copy of the “ur­gent” let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 23, which out­lined a se­ries of con­cerns by San­tana about the su­per­in­ten­dent’s per­for­mance and con­duct.

The se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent not­ed a marked de­cline in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty among of­fi­cers un­der his com­mand, along with a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in sick leave and ab­sen­teeism.

“There is low morale and high lev­els of frus­tra­tion among the of­fi­cers at­tached to the sta­tion. This has been stat­ed as some of the rea­sons for the ab­sen­teeism, sick leave and re­quest for va­ca­tion leave,” the let­ter stat­ed.

San­tana al­so com­plained that the su­per­in­ten­dent rarely at­tend­ed com­man­ders’ or coun­cil meet­ings, was fre­quent­ly ab­sent from the of­fice, and was dif­fi­cult to con­tact by phone.

The let­ter al­so ref­er­enced ear­li­er, cor­re­spon­dence from the San Fer­nan­do May­or in Oc­to­ber, who com­plained “bit­ter­ly about the on­go­ing chal­lenges” with the su­per­in­ten­dent and of­fi­cers un­der his com­mand.

San­tana said he al­so re­ceived cor­re­spon­dence from the Cor­po­ra­tion CEO in De­cem­ber about the act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent and his of­fi­cers’ “con­duct, re­spon­sive­ness and over­all ap­proach” to­wards their of­fi­cial du­ties.

De­spite be­ing spo­ken to on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions and giv­en guid­ance on im­prov­ing su­per­vi­sion and ad­min­is­tra­tive short­com­ings, the act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent failed to show im­prove­ment.

As a re­sult, San­tana rec­om­mend­ed that he be re­post­ed to the Point Fortin Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion, which is small­er and more man­age­able.

Based on in­struc­tions from ACP Sagram­s­ingh, San­tana stat­ed that on Jan­u­ary 8, he at­tempt­ed to serve the act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent with his re­post­ing let­ter, but with­out suc­cess, and sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact him via cell­phone were un­suc­cess­ful. Fol­low­ing that, he said the of­fi­cer stopped all com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­li­able source, San­tana was not aware of the al­le­ga­tions that have since sur­faced re­gard­ing il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties at the po­lice sta­tion when he made the re­quest for the trans­fer.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that San­tana’s con­tract came to an end in ear­ly April, and ver­bal as­sur­ances were giv­en that it would be re­newed, but he has since been in­formed that it will not be.

On Tues­day, homi­cide de­tec­tives were in­struct­ed by DPP Roger Gas­pard to charge one of Ever­s­ley’s col­leagues with her mur­der, traf­fick­ing of firearms, rob­bery with vi­o­lence and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion.

How­ev­er, up to last evening, no charges had been laid against him.

As in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the in­ci­dent, the act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent and four con­sta­bles have since been sus­pend­ed, while Sagram­s­ingh has been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris de­clined com­ment, while the act­ing su­per­in­ten­dent did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages.