Mystar visits slain officer’s family

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

New­ly ap­point­ed act­ing T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS) head, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar, yes­ter­day met with griev­ing rel­a­tives of slain po­lice of­fi­cer Anus­ka Ever­s­ley in an emo­tion­al­ly charged ex­change which left sev­er­al peo­ple in tears.

Dur­ing the al­most two-hour-long meet­ing at Ever­s­ley’s home at Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, ACP Mys­tar sought to re­as­sure her rel­a­tives that thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions would be con­duct­ed. He al­so urged the fam­i­ly to be pa­tient as he said the au­thor­i­ties would leave no stone un­turned as they seek to es­tab­lish the cir­cum­stances that led to Ever­s­ley’s killing.

He told the of­fi­cer’s fam­i­ly, “No words can re­place what has been tak­en.”

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Mys­tar said, “This was not a cer­e­mo­ni­al vis­it. It was a nec­es­sary one. A po­lice of­fi­cer has lost her life un­der cir­cum­stances that strike at the core of our du­ty, our se­cu­ri­ty, and our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a ser­vice.”

Ever­s­ley was found dead at the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters, La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, around 4.40 am on Sun­day. Fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of her bloody and bat­tered body, of­fi­cers were al­so stunned to find all the arms and am­mu­ni­tion miss­ing from the sta­tion’s ar­moury.

Ever­s­ley, 42, was a moth­er of three chil­dren, aged sev­en, 15 and 18 with over 19 years of ser­vice.

Yes­ter­day’s meet­ing was Mys­tar’s first pub­lic en­gage­ment fol­low­ing his in­stal­la­tion as the new TTMPS head on Thurs­day. Mys­tar, who had been sent on 16 months of ac­crued va­ca­tion leave from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in Sep­tem­ber 2025, was re­called from leave be­fore be­ing in­stalled to lead the TTMPS.

Reaf­firm­ing his com­mit­ment to the job via a state­ment hours af­ter the meet­ing, Mys­tar said he was pre­pared to em­brace the chal­lenges that would come his way.

“I ac­cept this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with a clear un­der­stand­ing of the chal­lenges be­fore us and with an equal­ly clear com­mit­ment to restor­ing sta­bil­i­ty, strength­en­ing op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness, and re­in­forc­ing the role of Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.” Out­lin­ing a list of the im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ties, he said it would in­clude ini­ti­at­ing an im­me­di­ate re­view of all mu­nic­i­pal po­lice se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, in­fra­struc­ture and op­er­a­tional readi­ness.

“All is­sues iden­ti­fied will be ad­dressed with ur­gency and ac­count­abil­i­ty,” he said.

Mys­tar said he will al­so fo­cus on the en­gage­ment of of­fi­cers and stake­hold­ers to re­solve key is­sues through struc­tured di­a­logue, with a view to re­viv­ing of­fi­cer morale, and strength­en­ing the role of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice with­in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture.

Mys­tar has al­ready been called up­on to re­spond to a call by for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les for a Com­mis­sion of In­quiry (CoI) in­to the in­ci­dent. The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man yes­ter­day de­mand­ed the im­me­di­ate es­tab­lish­ment of an in­de­pen­dent CoI to ex­am­ine a num­ber of is­sues aris­ing out of the un­for­tu­nate tragedy.

Al­though this sit­u­a­tion is un­prece­dent­ed in T&T’s his­to­ry, Gon­za­les claimed, “This in­ci­dent is not an iso­lat­ed tragedy. It is a glar­ing symp­tom of se­ri­ous se­cu­ri­ty laps­es, in­ter­nal cor­rup­tion, and deeply en­trenched vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in the man­age­ment, over­sight, and op­er­a­tions of key arms of our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture.”

In­di­cat­ing the sit­u­a­tion de­mand­ed ur­gent na­tion­al at­ten­tion, ac­count­abil­i­ty and de­ci­sive ac­tion, Gon­za­les added, “When a po­lice sta­tion can be com­pro­mised, when an of­fi­cer los­es her life in the line of du­ty un­der such cir­cum­stances, and when cit­i­zens are left fear­ful and un­cer­tain, the mat­ter ris­es be­yond rou­tine po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

La­belling it a “na­tion­al cri­sis,” he said, “The cit­i­zens of this coun­try de­serve an­swers. The fam­i­ly of the fall­en of­fi­cer de­serves jus­tice. Our law en­force­ment of­fi­cers de­serve safe work­ing con­di­tions. And the na­tion’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture de­serves ur­gent re­form.”

He placed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies on no­tice that the PNM would not al­low the mat­ter to be cov­ered up.