Six detained as Griffith calls for police overhaul

Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Six peo­ple, in­clud­ing two mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers, are in cus­tody fol­low­ing a break­through in the mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion of WPC Anusha Ever­s­ley, as for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith calls for sweep­ing changes to mu­nic­i­pal polic­ing.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice said the sus­pects—two of­fi­cers, two women and two men—were de­tained dur­ing co­or­di­nat­ed overnight raids in South Trinidad. Of­fi­cers al­so re­cov­ered a cache of firearms be­lieved to have been stolen from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice head­quar­ters at Kings Wharf.

Po­lice re­port­ed the seizure of mul­ti­ple pis­tols, in­clud­ing Glock 19s and Smith and Wes­son weapons, along with hun­dreds of rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

Ever­s­ley was shot dead at the Kings Wharf com­pound on Sun­day, when a vault con­tain­ing 68 firearms and thou­sands of rounds of am­mu­ni­tion was al­so tak­en.

Grif­fith said the case ex­pos­es gaps in over­sight, ar­gu­ing mu­nic­i­pal po­lice op­er­ate as a “par­al­lel po­lice or­gan­i­sa­tion” with lim­it­ed ac­count­abil­i­ty to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

“You can­not have a par­al­lel or­gan­i­sa­tion,” he said. “The mu­nic­i­pal po­lice should come un­der the um­brel­la of the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice.”

He said the cur­rent struc­ture leaves the TTPS fac­ing scruti­ny de­spite hav­ing lit­tle con­trol over mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing their train­ing, mon­i­tor­ing and op­er­a­tional de­ploy­ment.

Grif­fith added the lack of co­or­di­na­tion has led to du­pli­ca­tion of re­sources, with both ser­vices some­times as­signed to the same du­ties.

A se­nior mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cial said of­fi­cers re­ceive ini­tial train­ing but there is no for­mal sys­tem of on­go­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal as­sess­ments, cit­ing bud­get con­straints.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro was present dur­ing the ear­ly morn­ing ex­er­cis­es as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued.

Po­lice said the probe re­mains on­go­ing.