Missing firearm records raise concerns in WPC Eversley murder probe

Jen-ai Mo­hammed

Ques­tions are now be­ing raised about the man­age­ment of firearms at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion, where Woman Po­lice Cor­po­ral Anusha Ever­s­ley was mur­dered on Sun­day, with emerg­ing con­cerns that in­com­plete se­r­i­al num­ber records of firearms in the precinct’s in­ven­to­ry could hin­der ef­forts to track the weapons stolen dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

Sources close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­di­cate that not all firearms with­in the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice sys­tem may have been prop­er­ly doc­u­ment­ed.They said the ap­par­ent gaps in record-keep­ing could pose a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for in­ves­ti­ga­tors and Crime Stop­pers when it comes to at­tempt­ing to ver­i­fy whether re­cov­ered weapons are di­rect­ly con­nect­ed to the case.

So far, the TTPS has re­cov­ered 43 firearms and more than 900 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion. A $100,000 re­ward is be­ing of­fered by Crime Stop­pers for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to ar­rests in the mur­der case, along with a $5,000 re­ward for the re­cov­ery of each stolen firearm.

Ever­s­ley was beat­en and stran­gled to death at the sta­tion. A large cache of guns and am­mu­ni­tion were al­so stolen from the ar­moury.but the num­ber has not been ver­i­fied.

Sources yes­ter­day claimed the is­sue may ex­tend be­yond doc­u­men­ta­tion of the weapons alone. They sug­gest­ed that ad­min­is­tra­tive laps­es in the han­dling of the po­lice ar­moury may have com­pro­mised in­ven­to­ry con­trols over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.

These claims point to pos­si­ble sys­temic weak­ness­es in how firearms are mon­i­tored and ac­count­ed for with­in the ser­vice, rais­ing broad­er con­cerns about over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

In ad­di­tion, there are al­le­ga­tions of in­ter­nal mis­con­duct in­volv­ing the il­le­gal sale of firearms be­ing kept at the sta­tion with­in the precinct.

One source al­leged that con­trary to me­dia re­ports, the killing may be linked to Ever­s­ley’s re­fusal to par­tic­i­pate in the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The de­vel­op­ments sug­gest that in­ves­ti­ga­tors may now be ex­am­in­ing not on­ly the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the killing, but whether in­ter­nal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties with­in the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice ser­vice could have played a role.

Mean­while, ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­tion has al­ready been tak­en in con­nec­tion with the mat­ter. A su­per­in­ten­dent and four of­fi­cers from the sta­tion have been sus­pend­ed pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Sources claimed that new man­age­ment is ex­pect­ed to be in place at the precinct by the end of this month.

Fur­ther­more, au­thor­i­ties have yet to pub­licly ad­dress the con­cerns sur­round­ing firearm record-keep­ing, the al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties with­in the ar­moury, or the broad­er im­pli­ca­tions for in­ter­nal con­trols.

The case has al­ready drawn na­tion­al at­ten­tion due to the na­ture of the killing and the theft of firearms. How­ev­er, the emerg­ing ques­tions about how those weapons were man­aged and whether they can be prop­er­ly traced have added a new lay­er of ur­gency to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.