Head of Municipal Police sent on leave as probe into murder of WPC, gun theft intensifies

Chester Sam­bra­no and

Gail Alexan­der

Head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS), As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, has been sent on leave as part of the probe in­to the mur­der of act­ing cor­po­ral Anusha Ever­s­ley and the theft of guns and am­mu­ni­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion on Sun­day.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen con­firmed the ac­tion.

She said it was an “Ad­min­is­tra­tive di­rec­tive by PS (Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary) not to re­port for du­ty dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The min­is­ter de­scribed it as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.

She added, “It’s not a find­ing of mis­con­duct or li­a­bil­i­ty on his part.”

Min­is­ter Ameen al­so told Guardian Me­dia that, “While there is the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mur­der of Cpl Ever­s­ley and the stolen arms and am­mu­ni­tion, an ad­min­is­tra­tive re­port is al­so ex­pect­ed to de­ter­mine what went wrong from an ad­min­is­tra­tive stand­point in terms of chain of com­mand, su­per­vi­sion, pro­ce­dures, etc, that may have been breached.”

She said they will use rec­om­men­da­tions from that re­port for im­prove­ment.

ACP Sagram­s­ingh con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that he was hand­ed a let­ter at 5 pm yes­ter­day telling him he was be­ing sent on leave. He said he was as­sured it did not mean there was any im­pli­ca­tion of mis­con­duct on his part but was to en­sure trans­paren­cy dur­ing the du­ra­tion of the probe.

Mean­while, three more peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the brazen mur­der of Ever­s­ley and the theft of an es­ti­mat­ed 62 guns and 4,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion from the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice sta­tion on Sun­day.

It brings to ten the num­ber of peo­ple be­tween the ages of 16 to 33 in po­lice cus­tody in con­nec­tion with the crimes. Yes­ter­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der told the Sen­ate the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was at a “sen­si­tive stage” with po­lice await­ing the di­rec­tions of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Among those held were two mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers and a 16-year-old trades­man of Rose­hill, Clax­ton Bay.

So far, po­lice said 45 firearms and 900 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, plus oth­er types of am­mu­ni­tion, have al­so been re­cov­ered fol­low­ing Ever­s­ley’s mur­der.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi about Sun­day’s dis­cov­ery of Ever­s­ley’s body and the theft of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion, where she was based, Alexan­der al­so said mea­sures are al­ready be­ing put in place to en­sure that a breach does not oc­cur again.

An au­top­sy re­vealed that Ever­s­ley was stran­gled and al­so suf­fered blunt and sharp force trau­mat­ic in­juries (stab and chop wounds).

Al-Rawi, ex­tend­ing deep­est con­do­lences to Ever­s­ley’s fam­i­ly, added, “(She) was some­one who I ac­tu­al­ly knew in the course of du­ties.”

Alexan­der said, “The mur­der of Cor­po­ral Ever­s­ley at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Po­lice Sta­tion and the sub­se­quent steal­ing of firearms is a mat­ter of great na­tion­al con­cern. Since this in­ci­dent oc­curred, less than 48 hours ago, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has worked around the clock. I am (sic) con­firmed that, ac­cord­ing to the in­for­ma­tion from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, that 10 men, ages 16 to 33, are cur­rent­ly in po­lice cus­tody.”

“We have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in the re­cov­ery of these stolen ‘hard­ware’ (sic), in­clud­ing one MPX sub-ma­chine gun, four shot­guns, one re­volver and 39 pis­tols. That in­cludes al­so 900 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and al­so 39 pis­tol mag­a­zines and one MPX mag­a­zine.”

Alexan­der added, “While the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is at a sen­si­tive stage, and we await the di­rec­tions of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is al­ready im­ple­ment­ing dras­tic im­me­di­ate in­sti­tu­tion­al changes. These in­clude strict new ac­count­abil­i­ty pro­to­cols for firearms stor­age se­cu­ri­ty to en­sure such a breach nev­er hap­pens again at the Mu­nic­i­pal Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment po­lice sta­tion.”

On Mon­day, the Com­mis­sion­er said the TTPS had so far re­cov­ered a to­tal of 38 firearms and 929 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion stolen. He said the re­cov­ered weapons in­clud­ed one MPX sub­ma­chine gun, one shot­gun, one re­volver and 35 pis­tols. In ad­di­tion, 929 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, com­pris­ing 900 rounds of 9mm, ten rounds of .38 cal­i­bre and ten shot­gun car­tridges, were re­cov­ered.

Al-Rawi asked if the wide­spread mech­a­nisms avail­able un­der the State of Emer­gency are be­ing used in the man­age­ment of the crime.

Alexan­der said, “All mem­bers of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus are present­ly en­gaged at this time in or­der to bring clo­sure to this sit­u­a­tion as soon as hu­man­ly pos­si­ble.”

Oth­er queries by Al-Rawi were not al­lowed as they did not arise from the orig­i­nal ques­tion, which the Sen­ate’s Stand­ing Or­ders re­quire.