Two high-pow­ered firearms and a large cache of am­mu­ni­tion were yes­ter­day un­earthed by De­fence Force per­son­nel dur­ing an ear­ly-morn­ing ex­er­cise. Re­ports in­di­cate that around 12.35 pm, of­fi­cers of the T&T Reg­i­ment made the find at an emp­ty prop­er­ty at Her­ra Trace, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni. The of­fi­cers, as­signed to Camp Og­den, were as­sem­bled by Sgt Questelles of the T&T Reg­i­ment who ear­li­er re­ceived a tip-off. The il­le­gal items that were seized in­clud­ed a 12-gauge shot­gun, a .22 ri­fle with a scope and 387 rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion. Al­so seized were 125 rounds of 7.62 am­mu­ni­tion and 63 rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion. The weapons were found buried in a red and black duf­fle bag and were wrapped in bed sheets. Act­ing Cpl Singh, of the Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion, was con­tact­ed and the guns tak­en to the sta­tion. No ar­rests were made dur­ing the ex­er­cise. Cpl Singh is con­tin­u­ing in­quires.

In ad­di­tion to the two guns seized by sol­diers, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs said four oth­er firearms were re­cov­ered dur­ing po­lice ex­er­cis­es be­tween Mon­day and yes­ter­day morn­ing. Gibbs made the state­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day's dai­ly se­cu­ri­ty brief­ing held at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair. He not­ed that more than 894 ar­rests were made by po­lice since the an­nounce­ment of the state of emer­gency on Au­gust 21. Gibbs said that be­tween Mon­day and yes­ter­day morn­ing, 74 ar­rests were made, in­clud­ing 37 for gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty. Gibbs al­so an­nounced that 93 traf­fic tick­ets were is­sued dur­ing the pe­ri­od, in­clud­ing for dri­vers who failed to wear their seat belts.

Ar­rests

Ar­rests made be­tween Mon­day and yes­ter­day morn­ing:

37 gang-re­lat­ed;

2 homi­cide-re­lat­ed;

15 drug-re­lat­ed;

1 firearm of­fence;

6 se­ri­ous of­fences;

13 out­stand­ing war­rants; and

93 traf­fic tick­ets is­sued.