An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way to ac­count for three firearms be­long­ing to mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion af­ter the weapons could not be lo­cat­ed dur­ing an ear­ly-morn­ing arms check yes­ter­day.

The guns were re­port­ed­ly dis­cov­ered miss­ing around 5 am. They were sup­pos­ed­ly lodged at the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, on Mon­day, but could not be ac­count­ed for dur­ing the check.

Se­nior of­fi­cials were re­luc­tant to con­firm that the guns and an un­known quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion had been stolen.

In­stead, they cau­tioned against that nar­ra­tive, stress­ing that it could have been an “ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror.”

Of­fi­cials spec­u­lat­ed that the weapons could have been er­ro­neous­ly hand­ed over to se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel. How­ev­er, they as­sured that ex­ten­sive checks were be­ing car­ried out to de­ter­mine when the firearms were brought to the sta­tion and who took pos­ses­sion of them af­ter they were hand­ed over.

The in­ci­dent comes al­most four months af­ter the ar­moury at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion was found emp­tied of arms and am­mu­ni­tion.

The emp­ty vault was dis­cov­ered on April 19, at the same time the bloody and bat­tered body of Cpl Anus­ka Ever­s­ley was found in the sta­tion at King’s Wharf, La­dy Hailes Av­enue.

The 42-year-old moth­er of three was beat­en and stran­gled.

An au­dit un­der­tak­en by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to de­ter­mine how many firearms and am­mu­ni­tion were stolen dur­ing the heist re­mains ac­tive.

Fol­low­ing that in­ci­dent, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers were in­struct­ed to lodge their firearms at po­lice sta­tions as stricter se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were put in place to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty.