Police to step up patrols around QPS following murder

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions is pur­su­ing cer­tain leads ob­tained on Thurs­day’s mur­der of Health Min­istry em­ploy­ee Ma­sud Pros­per and ad­di­tion­al types of po­lice pa­trols will be in force around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, where he was killed, says Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

Alexan­der gave the in­for­ma­tion in the Low­er House yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing queries from Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

Pros­per, a Health Min­istry dri­ver, was shot mul­ti­ple times around 5.30 pm at the QPS. He had been sit­ting in a black Lancer car parked in front of the food court, where he had gone to pick up his nine-year-old son from foot­ball prac­tice. The boy re­port­ed­ly wit­nessed the mur­der of his fa­ther.

Yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les asked Alexan­der to say what ur­gent mea­sures will be tak­en to im­prove safe­ty.

Alexan­der said, “The in­ci­dent at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah is one of great con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it oc­curred in a high­ly and heavy traf­ficked fam­i­ly space and in the pres­ence of a child. I’ve di­rect­ed an im­me­di­ate op­er­a­tional re­sponse to sort­ing out this sit­u­a­tion.

“Ad­di­tion­al foot, mo­bile and in­tel­li­gence-led pa­trols will be fo­cused on that par­tic­u­lar area. The Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions is al­so pur­su­ing cer­tain leads. They got in­for­ma­tion, in­tel­li­gence and ev­i­dence that could as­sist the mat­ter in go­ing for­ward.”

Alexan­der not­ed that in­ci­dents al­so hap­pened at the QPS in 2000, 2021 and 2023.

Gon­za­les al­so asked what steps are be­ing tak­en to se­cure all firearms and am­mu­ni­tion at all po­lice sta­tions across the coun­try, fol­low­ing re­ports that more guns and am­mu­ni­tion have been dis­cov­ered miss­ing in the case of stolen guns and the April 19 mur­der of Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Of­fi­cer act­ing cor­po­ral Anus­ka Ever­s­ley.

It was re­port­ed that over 100 firearms and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion had been stolen from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion, where Ever­s­ley was mur­dered.

Alexan­der said, “Be­cause of the se­cu­ri­ty as­pect of this par­tic­u­lar ques­tion, I can say this much: the Po­lice Ser­vice has tak­en in­to ac­count in terms of ac­count­abil­i­ty and stor­age of these firearms at those var­i­ous lo­ca­tions.

“But at this time, I wouldn’t want to go any fur­ther in­to it be­cause there are a lot of per­sons who have not yet been in­ter­viewed with re­spect to this mat­ter.”

The min­is­ter said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues and so far, over 44 firearms and nu­mer­ous amounts of am­mu­ni­tion had been re­cov­ered.

TTPS bul­let track­ing sys­tem com­ing

Fol­low­ing re­cent re­ports that T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) am­mu­ni­tion was found at the scene of a mur­der in Arou­ca, Gon­za­les al­so asked if an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched by the TTPS in­to this mat­ter.

Alexan­der said, “Yes ... Since 2020 and be­yond and fur­ther than that, am­mu­ni­tion with mark­ings of the TTPS and oth­er agen­cies have been found on crime scenes.

“How­ev­er, the TTPS has ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and at this time, I’m ad­vised by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, there’s a project present­ly en­gag­ing the TTPS since 2025, to re­place all ex­ist­ing am­mu­ni­tion with a mark­ing that they will be able to iden­ti­fy for the pur­pose of trac­ing and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

Alexan­der said this ex­er­cise will be com­plet­ed on May 8.

“Fur­ther, it has been an­tic­i­pat­ed there may be an his­tor­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty ‘vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty’ in re­la­tion to TTPS am­mu­ni­tion that have been on loan to Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice since 2019. In re­sponse, the TTPS has im­ple­ment­ed ad­di­tion­al mea­sures to strength­en the con­trol, stor­age and mon­i­tor­ing of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion at the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice sta­tions.”

Gon­za­les asked if Alexan­der was say­ing that it is pos­si­ble that firearms and am­mu­ni­tion from the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice sec­tion/de­part­ment are like­ly to be on the scene of crimes in T&T.

Alexan­der said, “Where I came from, we don’t spec­u­late un­til in­for­ma­tion comes di­rect­ly and we re­spond ac­cord­ing­ly...”