Opposition calls for action after police station killing

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Mar­vin Gon­za­les have called for ac­tion fol­low­ing the killing of Act­ing Cor­po­ral Anush­ka Ever­s­ley in­side the San Fer­nan­do City Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion.

In sep­a­rate state­ments, Beck­les and Gon­za­les said the in­ci­dents have raised con­cerns about safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, ques­tion­ing the abil­i­ty of au­thor­i­ties to pro­tect cit­i­zens if of­fi­cers are not safe with­in a po­lice sta­tion.

Beck­les said the killing of the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer high­lights con­cerns about the re­sponse to crime and the broad­er se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ment.

She said the in­ci­dent re­flects on­go­ing is­sues re­lat­ed to crime and the ef­fec­tive­ness of mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed by those re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

She re­ferred to com­ments made last Fri­day by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who stat­ed that law en­force­ment can­not pre­dict and pre­vent every homi­cide but aims to pro­tect the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion with avail­able re­sources.

Beck­les said cit­i­zens should ex­pect safe­ty in all lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing po­lice sta­tions, and added that the killing of an of­fi­cer with­in such a fa­cil­i­ty rais­es ques­tions about se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols and safe­guards.

She al­so ad­dressed the State of Emer­gency in place since April 2025, stat­ing that it has not ad­dressed crime pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion or de­ter­rence.

Beck­les said the con­tin­ued use of emer­gency mea­sures with­out mea­sur­able re­sults has con­tributed to con­cern among cit­i­zens about the ef­fec­tive­ness of cur­rent strate­gies.

Gon­za­les, in his state­ment, said the killing of a po­lice of­fi­cer and re­ports of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion miss­ing from a po­lice sta­tion raise ques­tions about se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures and over­sight.

He al­so re­ferred to state­ments by Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro re­gard­ing crime, in­clud­ing re­marks that the is­sue fac­ing the coun­try was fear of crime rather than crime it­self.

Gon­za­les said the in­ci­dent demon­strates that crime re­mains a con­cern re­quir­ing at­ten­tion and ac­tion.

He called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to con­vene a meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and to ad­dress the coun­try on the de­vel­op­ments.

Gon­za­les said there is a need for steps to lo­cate the miss­ing firearms and am­mu­ni­tion and to iden­ti­fy those re­spon­si­ble for the killing of the of­fi­cer and any re­lat­ed breach­es of se­cu­ri­ty.

He al­so called for the Gov­ern­ment to seek in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance in tech­ni­cal, foren­sic and in­ves­tiga­tive ar­eas if re­quired to sup­port on­go­ing in­quiries.

He fur­ther called for the re­moval of the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty pend­ing fur­ther de­vel­op­ments re­lat­ed to the mat­ter.

Both Beck­les and Gon­za­les said the in­ci­dent high­lights the need for a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al re­sponse to crime, in­clud­ing polic­ing, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, jus­tice process­es and so­cial pro­grammes.