A Laven­tille man who was ar­rest­ed on Mon­day night dur­ing a road­block ex­er­cise in San­ta Cruz for dri­ving with­out a per­mit and in­sur­ance was al­so charged with firearm pos­ses­sion af­ter of­fi­cers found the weapon in a bag un­der the front seat.

The sus­pect’s sev­en-year-old son who was in the car at the time, was al­so tak­en to the po­lice sta­tion where he was lat­er col­lect­ed by rel­a­tives.

Po­lice said the 35-year-old man from Pash­ley Street, Laven­tille, was de­tained dur­ing the op­er­a­tion which was car­ried out be­tween 10 am and 2 pm on March 31.

The ex­er­cise which was spear­head­ed by Snr Supt Car­ty and in­clud­ed mem­bers of the Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion, San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion, San­ta Cruz Po­lice Sta­tion and the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force—con­duct­ed stop and search op­er­a­tions which in­clud­ed the sus­pect’s black Toy­ota Yaris.

De­tain­ing the dri­ver af­ter he was un­able to pro­duce a valid dri­ver’s per­mit and in­sur­ance, of­fi­cers took the sus­pect and his son to the San Juan Po­lice Sub Sta­tion.

Up­on ar­rival, they searched the car and found a hand­bag tucked un­der the dri­ver’s seat which con­tained a gun, fit­ted with one mag­a­zine con­tain­ing ten rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

Rel­a­tives were lat­er con­tact­ed to col­lect the child while the sus­pect re­mained in cus­tody.