Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs says the destruction of illegal firearms will create a dent in crime in the country. "The destruction of stockpiles of illegal firearms is certainly one avenue to help reduce the number of illegal firearms as well as the use of legal firearms that were used for illegal purposes that are no longer necessary to have in the country," Gibbs said. "It's a good programme." He was speaking after the launch of the inter-institutional training course on combating the illicit trafficking in firearms, ammunition, and explosives at the gymnasium, Police Training Academy, St James, yesterday.
He revealed while some of the firearms police had seized over the years must be kept for evidence, any weapon no longer needed for that purpose would be destroyed. Some weapons seized that were legally licensed firearms could be returned to their owners after investigation. "Depending on the nature of the outcome of court matters, some of those weapons can be returned, some of them won't and some will be destroyed because we don't resell those weapons," Gibbs said.
When asked to comment on Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley's allegation that the police were just picking up detainees during the state of emergency and weren't aware of the evidence or its ramifications, as well as the Attorney General saying police officers needed more training on evidence gathering techniques in reference to the Anti-Gang Legislation he replied: "Our officers have gone out in very good faith in arresting the bad guys that are out on the streets," Gibbs said. He said the Anti-Gang Legislation came in on August 15 and state of emergency was declared on August 21 so there was very little time to get an appreciation of the full understanding of it. "As we move forward we're learning, however," Gibbs said.
"We've had good success in terms of the people that were arrested during the emergency. We've taken many people off the roads for substantial crimes as well as for drug offences, illegal firearms and a variety of other offences." He said statistics showed that the emergency had been effective. "We've seen a very large reduction in serious crimes and homicides in T&T," Gibbs said. "That in itself is a very big success as far as the crime situation goes," he added.