ACP Wayne Mystar named head of Municipal Police

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar has been named as the new head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS).

He will re­place for­mer head Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, who was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave on Tues­day.

Claims be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing yes­ter­day that Mys­tar, who him­self had been on va­ca­tion leave from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) since Sep­tem­ber 2025, had been se­lect­ed to lead the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al and op­er­a­tional shake-up cur­rent­ly un­der­way in the TTMPS. It was lat­er con­firmed by Guardian Me­dia.

Mys­tar’s ap­point­ment comes as the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­der of act­ing Cpl Anusha Ever­s­ley, along with the theft of a cache of arms and am­mu­ni­tion from the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters, La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, on Sun­day, con­tin­ues.

Everlsey, 42, a moth­er of three, with over 19 years of ser­vice, was dis­cov­ered dead in the sta­tion – while the safe had been emp­tied of all firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

A post-mortem de­ter­mined she was stran­gled and beat­en.

While the TTPS is yet to con­firm just how many guns and am­mu­ni­tion had been stolen, an of­fi­cial up­date on Tues­day claimed 43 guns and over 900 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were re­cov­ered dur­ing op­er­a­tions be­tween Sun­day and Tues­day.

A to­tal of ten peo­ple, in­clud­ing two mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers, re­mained in cus­tody up to yes­ter­day.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were giv­en the go-ahead to charge a 28-year-old col­league of Ever­s­ley’s with her mur­der on Tues­day night by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Roger Gas­pard, but the Clax­ton Bay of­fi­cer is yet to be charged.

He was al­so ex­pect­ed to be slapped with a slew of charges, in­clud­ing rob­bery with vi­o­lence, traf­fick­ing in firearms and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion.

Sources con­firmed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors will be con­sult­ing with the DPP to­day re­gard­ing charges for two more sus­pects.

Wen­dell Everse­ly slams those smear­ing niece’s name:

WPC Ever­s­ley’s un­cle, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Wen­dell Ever­s­ley, is blast­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, fol­low­ing claims that a ring of of­fi­cers at­tached to the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion was in­volved in cor­rupt and il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing the sale of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion over the past eight months.

He de­clared the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE) had proven to be a fail­ure.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, he said: “Mr Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Mr Alexan­der, where was your in­tel­li­gence that could have pre­vent­ed a crime?”

He added, “The pur­pose of this SoE is pre­ven­tion. The pur­pose is in­ter­dic­tion. You have done nei­ther.

“You have wait­ed for some­one to die, my niece. For weapons to be in the hands of crim­i­nals, and now who have them?”

Ever­s­ley con­tin­ued, “The call to beat your chest and say you are suc­cess­ful in crime man­age­ment in a State of Emer­gency, this has been go­ing on for eight months, and no­body gath­ered in­tel­li­gence on this to stop it.”

A for­mer hostage dur­ing the 1990 coup, Ever­s­ley trained his anger on the TTPS, as he ar­gued that they were the ones re­spon­si­ble for gath­er­ing in­tel­li­gence.

He ex­pressed dis­gust as he asked, “You are telling me that not one shred of in­for­ma­tion was gath­ered un­der this pro­longed SoE to stop what is hap­pen­ing to my niece?

“The Prime Min­is­ter, by her own words, by her own ad­mis­sion, said eight months some­thing go­ing on and on­ly be­cause of the mur­der they now know, and the words of a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer who said that this mat­ter has been go­ing on for eight months now.”

De­mand­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar name the of­fi­cer in ques­tion, Ever­s­ley in­sist­ed, “Fail­ure to act is al­so an of­fence.

“So, Madam Prime Min­is­ter, you have ad­mit­ted that this SoE is fail­ing. You have ad­mit­ted that the po­lice in­tel­li­gence is fail­ing. You have ad­mit­ted that your Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is fail­ing. You have ad­mit­ted that your Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is fail­ing.”

Call­ing for an im­me­di­ate end to the SoE, Ever­s­ley ques­tioned if there was a crime plan in place, and if so, what it in­clud­ed and when it would take ef­fect.

He al­so dis­missed the false nar­ra­tives be­ing per­pet­u­at­ed against his niece by the “spin doc­tors.”

Call­ing on the coun­try to con­sid­er the hurt and pain the mur­dered of­fi­cer’s three chil­dren and oth­er rel­a­tives had to en­dure every time a false ac­count is pub­lished, Ever­s­ley said his niece’s el­der child, aged 18, will be writ­ing the CAPE ex­am in a cou­ple of weeks, and he could not fath­om what frame of mind she would be in.

He ad­mit­ted, “When Mon­day reach, it will be pain.”

Fu­ner­al arrange­ments for Ever­s­ley are be­ing fi­nalised for Mon­day in San Fer­nan­do.

Staunch­ly de­fend­ing his rel­a­tive in the eyes of the pub­lic and so­cial me­dia users who con­tin­ue to paint the mur­dered woman in a bad light, Ever­s­ley said, “It’s tar­nish­ing a cor­po­ral who was mur­dered in­side a po­lice sta­tion, not out­side a po­lice sta­tion. It is tar­nish­ing her name and al­so tar­nish­ing the fam­i­ly’s name and es­pe­cial­ly tar­nish­ing her chil­dren’s name.”

Re­fer­ring to the per­son who al­leged­ly made the claim that of­fi­cer Ever­s­ley was in­volved in il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, he said, “That per­son had to be heart­less. That per­son don’t have no com­pas­sion.”

He said Ever­s­ley’s fam­i­ly was still in shock.

But he shared, “Anusha was a lov­ing per­son.”

Re­call­ing that he had been the mas­ter of cer­e­monies at her wed­ding, he said, “I saw Anusha grow up from a ba­by in Cal­i­for­nia. Anusha was a re­porter be­fore she joined the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice.”

He said she was em­ployed at the now de­funct T&T Mir­ror news­pa­per.

He said the fam­i­ly is now hav­ing to en­dure the whis­pers and dam­ag­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main.

“I can’t be­lieve this hap­pened to a lov­ing girl and what­ev­er you see out there...there’s a God and I be­lieve in God, right. When man fails you, God will not fail you.”

Asked if he be­lieved Ever­s­ley was be­ing fin­gered as the scape­goat in the sit­u­a­tion, he di­rect­ed that ques­tion to Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Gue­var­ro.

He al­so de­clined to an­swer if he felt pro­to­cols and pro­ce­dures had been breached on the night his niece was killed, as he said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was ac­tive.

Ever­s­ley said he will soon host a walk/dri­ve from the Ari­ma Di­al to the Red House to high­light the sit­u­a­tion.

Hurt­ing fam­i­ly says ‘enough is enough’

Read­ing from a let­ter penned by Ever­s­ley’s broth­er, whom he de­clined to name, the emo­tion­al un­cle be­gan, “It is with a heavy heart I write this state­ment. For the past few days, I have sat back and watched, lis­tened as cer­tain parts of so­ci­ety have im­pugned my de­ceased sis­ter’s char­ac­ter. It has reached to a point now where it must be said enough is enough!

“At­tack­ing a dead per­son who isn’t here to de­fend them­selves, who died in such a heinous man­ner, is heart­less, vile, de­spi­ca­ble and ut­ter­ly shame­less.”

He begged, “Spare a thought for the griev­ing fam­i­ly shall we, and how these al­le­ga­tions af­fect them, be­cause that’s all they are...al­le­ga­tions.”

The rel­a­tive ques­tioned, “If my sis­ter was as cor­rupt as they say, how come this was nev­er de­tect­ed be­fore?”

He lashed out, “Since we’re cast­ing as­per­sions, what does it say about the oth­er of­fi­cers at that sta­tion? Are they com­plic­it? What does it say about the checks and bal­ances of the po­lice ser­vice?”

Ques­tion­ing the pro­ce­dures in place re­gard­ing the hand­ing over at the start of every shift, he asked, “How come no dis­crep­an­cies were ever dis­cov­ered?”

He too moved to pre­serve his dead sis­ter’s name.

“My sis­ter hasn’t even been put to rest, yet all these sala­cious sto­ries are be­ing bandied about in the me­dia. How low as a so­ci­ety we have sunk. Those peo­ple who tru­ly knew my sis­ter would know she was a no-non­sense per­son, very jovial and ex­treme­ly af­fa­ble.”

He added, “She would give her last if some­one asked, al­ways will­ing to help. It hurts to see how her name is be­ing sul­lied just for the sake of likes and views.”

Re­veal­ing the fam­i­ly had sought le­gal ad­vice in the wake of pub­li­ca­tions in the Ex­press, Ever­s­ley said his niece had been mes­sag­ing her chil­dren whilst on du­ty that fate­ful night, yet nev­er made it home alive.

He con­clud­ed, “Let any in­ves­ti­ga­tion take its course. But I know all those who try­ing to spin doc(tor) this sit­u­a­tion. There’s a God above. You can spin doc(tor) for man. You can spin doc(tor) for the pub­lic, but you can’t spin doc(tor) for God.”