Major twist in probe into theft of guns, ammo from PoS station

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers have now been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the dis­ap­pear­ance of three firearms and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion from the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion at St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials con­firmed the ma­jor twist in the probe yes­ter­day, say­ing the of­fi­cers, who were of vary­ing ranks, would have been on shift the night when the arms and am­mu­ni­tion went miss­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to se­nior po­lice, the of­fi­cers were be­ing ques­tioned up to late yes­ter­day but no charges had yet been laid.

The miss­ing items in­clude three Glock pis­tols, three mag­a­zines and 45 rounds of .9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

The items were lodged at the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion for safe­keep­ing by mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers at­tached to the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion around 2.47 pm on Au­gust 10.

How­ev­er, a firearms check around 3.40 am the next day (Au­gust 11) re­vealed the arms and am­mu­ni­tion were miss­ing.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion was im­me­di­ate­ly launched.

Pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion sug­gest­ed that an “ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror” may have been re­spon­si­ble for the guns and am­mu­ni­tion be­ing un­ac­count­ed for.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice me­dia brief­ing on Wednes­day, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Joanne Archie de­clined to say much, urg­ing peo­ple to al­low the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to pro­ceed with­out un­due spec­u­la­tion.

“I do not have any up­date on that in­for­ma­tion and it may very well turn out to be ad­min­is­tra­tive. How­ev­er, I will let the in­ves­tiga­tive process take its course, and we will up­date the pub­lic as it pro­gress­es,” Archie said then.

Archie said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will in­clude a care­ful ex­am­i­na­tion of when the firearms were tak­en to the sta­tion and who took pos­ses­sion of them af­ter they were hand­ed over.

Tues­day’s in­ci­dent comes al­most four months af­ter the ar­moury at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion was found emp­tied of arms and am­mu­ni­tion.

The emp­ty vault was dis­cov­ered on April 19, at the same time the body of Cpl Anus­ka Ever­s­ley was found in the sta­tion at King’s Wharf, La­dy Hailes Av­enue.

An au­top­sy re­vealed the 42-year-old moth­er of three was beat­en and stran­gled.

An au­dit un­der­tak­en by the TTPS to de­ter­mine how many firearms and am­mu­ni­tion were stolen dur­ing the heist re­mains ac­tive.

Ever­s­ley’s col­league, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice con­sta­ble Ji­van “Bigs” Coop­er, con­struc­tion work­er Kwame Arnold, 20, and scrap iron deal­er Nicholas “Nico” Ram­dass, 24, both of Clax­ton Bay, have since been charged with Ever­s­ley’s mur­der and a se­ries of firearms traf­fick­ing of­fences linked to the stolen weapons and am­mu­ni­tion.

Four of the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers who were sus­pend­ed fol­low­ing that in­ci­dent have since re­turned to du­ty. How­ev­er, a su­per­in­ten­dent who was among the group ini­tial­ly sus­pend­ed fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent re­mains on sus­pen­sion.

Mu­nic­i­pal As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh was al­so sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave when that probe be­gan. He re­mains on leave.

Fol­low­ing that in­ci­dent, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers were in­struct­ed to lodge their firearms at po­lice sta­tions, as stricter se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were put in place by the T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty.