Police jacket, cap, ammo seized in Marabella search

SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

Of­fi­cers of the South­ern Di­vi­sion are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries in­to the dis­cov­ery of a blue tac­ti­cal jack­et and cap bear­ing the mark­ings 'Po­lice' that were found among oth­er items dur­ing a search in Mara­bel­la on Sat­ur­day evening.

In an of­fi­cial me­dia re­lease on Sun­day, the TTPS re­port­ed that po­lice were called to Sook­nanan Street, some­time be­tween 4 pm and 8 pm, where they searched a bushy area.

Of­fi­cers found a black bag con­tain­ing two mag­a­zines con­tain­ing a to­tal of 28 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion, along with a ski mask, black cap bear­ing the mark­ings po­lice and a blue tac­ti­cal jack­et bear­ing what ap­peared to be an of­fi­cial po­lice arm patch.

The re­lease re­port­ed that the items were seized as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

The preva­lence of crim­i­nals wear­ing po­lice gear and de­ceiv­ing vic­tims to stage at­tacks and rob­beries re­mained a chal­lenge even af­ter a change in the TTPS uni­form pol­i­cy in Oc­to­ber 2024, sought to quell such in­ci­dents by hav­ing of­fi­cers re­turn to tra­di­tion­al grey and char­coal uni­forms.

Of­fi­cers as­signed to spe­cial tac­ti­cal units (the In­ter-Agency Task Force, the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Task Force and the Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion) con­tin­ue to wear blue tac­ti­cal uni­forms and blue dig­i­tal cam­ou­flage kits.

In Au­gust 25-year-old welder Ja­mal Williams was shot and killed by gun­men wear­ing po­lice caps and a bul­let­proof vest bear­ing the mark­ings 'Po­lice'.

One week ear­li­er a Diego Mar­tin man re­port­ed that he was robbed at his home by men wear­ing sim­i­lar ap­par­el, who iden­ti­fied them­selves as po­lice of­fi­cers.