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Sunday, July 13, 2025

40 missing guns alarm top cop

by

20140812

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams says he is con­cerned about re­ports of over 40 guns be­ing stolen from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, end­ing back in the hands of crim­i­nals.Speak­ing at a post Eid-ul-Fitr func­tion at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Williams said the in­ci­dent, which is re­port­ed to have hap­pened some­time be­tween last year and this year, was alarm­ing.

Guns seized by po­lice and used in mur­ders, rob­beries and shoot­ings are rou­tine­ly sent to the cen­tre to be test­ed and analysed as part of the ev­i­dence in court cas­es.The miss­ing guns could now im­pact on the suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion of those charged, one se­nior pros­e­cu­tor said.Asked whether he was con­cerned about the op­er­a­tions of the Cen­tre, Williams, said:

"I would have my con­cerns of firearms get­ting out of the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre and in­to the hands of crim­i­nals. "That is where my con­cerns would be be­cause the Po­lice Ser­vice is about get­ting the guns out of the hands of the crim­i­nals and to see firearms tak­en out of the hands of the crim­i­nals re­turn­ing to the hands of the crim­i­nals, that is a ma­jor con­cern of mine."

Williams said the cen­tre was not un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the po­lice and it was un­fair for him to be asked about its op­er­a­tions. He added while it fell un­der the Min­istry of Jus­tice, it did not mat­ter which min­istry it was un­der as the is­sue now was how se­cure the ex­hibits and what could be done to im­prove their se­cu­ri­ty.He said at the end of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion the Po­lice Ser­vice could make rec­om­men­da­tions on how to avoid a re­peat of the dis­ap­pear­ance but now was too pre­ma­ture.

It was re­port­ed on Mon­day that over 40 guns, some high-pow­ered ri­fles, went miss­ing some­time be­tween last year and Ju­ly this year. The weapons were brought to the cen­tre for bal­lis­tic test­ing.Their dis­ap­pear­ance was re­port­ed to di­rec­tor of the cen­tre, Ar­lette Lewis, by firearms ex­pert Derek Sankar who is in charge of the bal­lis­tic room. Lewis sub­se­quent­ly re­port­ed the mat­ter to the po­lice.


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