Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter—In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cer Charles Kublals­ingh, who was on ex­tend­ed leave, was shot once in the chest with a 12-gauge shot­gun less than three min­utes af­ter leav­ing his home on Sat­ur­day night. His at­tack­er then stole his gun and car.

The 56-year-old, po­lice said yes­ter­day, had re­quest­ed leave from du­ty af­ter he be­came a wit­ness in a mur­der case where one of his then su­pe­ri­ors was charged. That mat­ter is still on­go­ing.

Kublals­ingh, who lived at Jack­son Street, Curepe, was grant­ed a firearm user’s li­cence due to threats he re­port­ed to his col­leagues af­ter he be­came a wit­ness in the case.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 8.03 pm on Sat­ur­day, they re­ceived a re­port while on pa­trol of a shoot­ing at Wood­ford Street, Curepe. When they ar­rived, they found men bundling Kublals­ingh in­to a car to take him to hos­pi­tal.

The of­fi­cers es­cort­ed the car to hos­pi­tal, where Kublals­ingh was de­clared dead around 8.35 pm.

Po­lice said Kublals­ingh was re­turn­ing to his sil­ver Toy­ota Field­er wag­on parked along Wood­ford Street af­ter pur­chas­ing an item at a near­by mi­ni-mart. While walk­ing back to the car, how­ev­er, a gun­man ap­proached him and shot him in the chest. He then took Kublals­ingh’s Glock45 pis­tol and his car. The car was lat­er found aban­doned in Mara­cas, St Joseph.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Kublals­ingh’s rel­a­tives yes­ter­day, they said they were still grap­pling with the re­al­i­sa­tion that he was dead. They said he left home, promis­ing his dog he was re­turn­ing soon. The dog has since been sleep­ing on his pil­low, await­ing his mas­ter’s re­turn.

“He was a good man,” was all one rel­a­tive could muster up the strength to say.

Guardian Me­dia left the home and jour­neyed for two min­utes and 16 sec­onds to the spot where he was shot.

At the scene of the shoot­ing, Homi­cide de­tec­tives were seen speak­ing with res­i­dents, hop­ing to piece to­geth­er what tran­spired.

While Guardian Me­dia was in the com­mu­ni­ty, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds was speak­ing on a ra­dio pro­gramme on crime, mur­ders and the de­tec­tion rate. He stopped to of­fer his con­do­lences to Kublals­ingh’s rel­a­tives and col­leagues.

“I want to ex­tend con­do­lences first to his fam­i­ly and to his com­mu­ni­ty and I cer­tain­ly want to ex­tend con­do­lences to Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice be­cause they would have lost a broth­er, a friend, a mem­ber and it trau­ma­tis­es them, not to the point of mak­ing them im­mo­bilised, but they do feel pain for their broth­er,” Hinds said.

Rel­a­tives said while Kublals­ingh was on ex­tend­ed per­son­al leave, he was mak­ing prepa­ra­tions to re­turn to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice as soon as pos­si­ble.

This ded­i­ca­tion to ser­vice is what pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion, Snr Supt Cur­tis Bed­ford, re­called most about Kublals­ingh.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Bed­ford said Charles was mem­ber of the as­so­ci­a­tion for sev­er­al years and was trea­sur­er for many. He said at a func­tion host­ed by the as­so­ci­a­tion to cel­e­brate its recog­ni­tion as an in­de­pen­dent arm of the in­ter­na­tion­al body and no longer un­der the US, Kublals­ingh was present.

He re­called Kublals­ingh speak­ing with the ad­ju­tant of the SRPs in re­la­tion to his re­turn to the ser­vice.

“I know Charles from when he was a se­cu­ri­ty guard at Hillview Col­lege when I went there, and I be­came a po­lice of­fi­cer. Charles had de­sired to be­come a po­lice of­fi­cer and I as­sist­ed him in that,” Bed­ford said.

He added that Kublals­ingh was pro­mot­ed to cor­po­ral be­fore he took leave, but as a tem­po­rary of­fi­cer, he was on no-pay leave.

Kublals­ingh, dur­ing his years, worked at the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice in San Juan and at the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad, Bed­ford said.

“He was a dis­tin­guished mem­ber of the as­so­ci­a­tion for sev­er­al years, serv­ing as trea­sur­er. He was well known and well re­gard­ed,” Bed­ford said, adding that Kublals­ingh was award­ed the Ser­vice Through Friend­ship Award on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions.