‘Internal betrayal’

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says there is no need for a cur­few fol­low­ing the killing of a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion on King’s Wharf.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had been ad­vised that the in­ci­dent at the sta­tion was not an ex­ter­nal at­tack on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) or oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies. In­stead, she said it was an “in­ter­nal be­tray­al” with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS).

She stressed that the TTPS is a sep­a­rate en­ti­ty from the TTMPS and said TTPS of­fi­cers were not in­volved in the in­ci­dent.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the TTPS would pro­vide full sup­port to the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice ser­vice, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris and the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter, re­cov­er the stolen items and bring the sit­u­a­tion to clo­sure.

The body of act­ing Cpl Anush­ka Ever­s­ley, 42, was dis­cov­ered at the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters, La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, around 4.40 am yes­ter­day. Some 62 guns and 4,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were al­so stolen from the sta­tion’s ar­moury.

The moth­er of three chil­dren, aged 18, 15 and sev­en, had been fa­tal­ly shot in the up­per body. Ever­s­ley had over 19 years of ser­vice.

The killing has sparked con­cern among mem­bers of the pub­lic, with calls in some quar­ters for stronger emer­gency mea­sures. How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said such mea­sures were not nec­es­sary at this time.

“There is no need for any cur­few,” she said, adding that law en­force­ment agen­cies con­tin­ue to make progress in ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion, which she de­scribed as a long-stand­ing is­sue.

She urged cit­i­zens to con­tin­ue their nor­mal rou­tines.

“Law-abid­ing cit­i­zens are en­cour­aged to go about their law­ful busi­ness as usu­al,” she said.

Mean­while, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has al­so moved to calm fears, say­ing law en­force­ment is not un­der at­tack and de­scrib­ing the in­ci­dent as a “one-off sit­u­a­tion.” He said the state’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus re­mains strong and op­er­a­tional, with no ev­i­dence of a tar­get­ed at­tack against law en­force­ment.

On the ques­tion of whether a cur­few would be in­tro­duced, he said, “I do not think that there is a need at this point in time to cause any un­due pan­ic in the pub­lic about cur­few and in­creas­ing what­ev­er with the SoE.”

While all law en­force­ment agen­cies re­main on high alert as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the mur­der and theft, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has ex­pressed full con­fi­dence in Gue­var­ro and his man­age­ment of the TTPS.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro ad­mit­ted that, along with the dead of­fi­cer, “a quan­ti­ty of weapons and am­mu­ni­tion has al­so been re­port­ed miss­ing from that fa­cil­i­ty.”

The CoP as­sured, “All nec­es­sary re­sources have been de­ployed to en­sure a thor­ough in­quiry and the re­cov­ery of those weapons.”

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to Ever­s­ley’s fam­i­ly and fel­low of­fi­cers, Gue­var­ro stressed that in­ves­ti­ga­tions were in progress.

He con­firmed that a num­ber of spe­cial­ist units had been en­gaged to as­sist in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in­clud­ing the South­ern Di­vi­sion CID, the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (SDTF), the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HBI), the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), the Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPS), and the Coastal and Air Sup­port Unit.

While he re­fused to con­firm whether fig­ures cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia about the stolen firearms and am­mu­ni­tion were ac­cu­rate, the Com­mis­sion­er said, “All of the weapons are said to be the prop­er­ty of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice De­part­ment, and none from any pri­vate cit­i­zens.”

The list be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia claimed a to­tal of 52 Glock pis­tols, six shot­guns, four MPX weapons and 4,000 rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion con­tained in a se­cu­ri­ty vault at the po­lice sta­tion had been stolen.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) in charge of Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, said sev­en of­fi­cers had been as­signed to the same shift as Ever­s­ley. How­ev­er, he not­ed, “Per­sons were de­ployed to oth­er sub-sta­tions.”

Pressed on whether it was cus­tom­ary for a sin­gle of­fi­cer to be left in a sta­tion, he said, “We have pro­to­cols that we usu­al­ly fol­low based on avail­able strength.”

He added, “I am cer­tain that every ef­fort would have been made, based on that strength, to have the req­ui­site amount of po­lice to man the sta­tion at the time.”

In­ter­rupt­ing the line of ques­tion­ing, Gue­var­ro said cer­tain in­for­ma­tion was be­ing with­held while the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is on­go­ing. How­ev­er, Sagram­s­ingh’s ad­mis­sion that Ever­s­ley was not alone at the sta­tion prompt­ed fur­ther ques­tions as to whether any oth­er of­fi­cer was harmed and what led to her killing. Re­porters were lat­er told no oth­er of­fi­cer had been in­jured dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

Gue­var­ro promised an up­date with­in 24 hours, but in­for­ma­tion around 5 pm in­di­cat­ed that a raid had been car­ried out at the home of a mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cer in Clax­ton Bay, who was de­tained in re­la­tion to the in­ci­dent.

Pressed ear­li­er in the day on how he would feel if fel­low of­fi­cers were linked to the mur­der, the CoP said, “I would feel very dis­heart­ened that an of­fi­cer, a sworn of­fi­cer, sworn to pro­tect the rights of cit­i­zens and up­hold the laws of T&T, could do some­thing so heinous to one of his own fel­low of­fi­cers.”

Search­es con­tin­ued in­to the night yes­ter­day in sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing Sea Lots, for the stolen weapons and am­mu­ni­tion.