A full and com­pre­hen­sive au­dit is to be done in­to the process used by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to is­sue firearms dat­ing back decades.

As this is be­ing done, the Firearms Reg­istry will re­main vir­tu­al­ly closed. How­ev­er, the hold­ers of Firearm User Li­cens­es (FUL) have been placed on no­tice that they can be re­scind­ed if any wrong­do­ing is un­earthed.

The six-mem­ber team, which will com­prise three re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers and three serv­ing of­fi­cers, has been giv­en three months in which to com­plete the au­dit and present their find­ings to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, which is chaired by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The TTPS is cur­rent­ly con­sult­ing with ACP Welling­ton Vir­gil, ACP Ray­mond Craig and In­spec­tor Leonard Charles, all re­tired, while the oth­er three of­fi­cers are yet to be iden­ti­fied.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds out­lined the back­ground against which this de­ci­sion was tak­en as he not­ed there was “pub­lic dis­qui­et about the is­sues of li­cens­ing of firearms.”

“Com­plaints were com­ing to Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment, to the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, com­plaints on the tele­vi­sion, gen­er­al dis­qui­et…suf­fi­cient enough for the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to have asked two then re­cent­ly-re­tired se­nior op­er­a­tives of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty plat­form…re­tired ACP Bar­ring­ton and re­tired Chief of De­fence Staff Pritchard…the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil asked both these well suit­ed pa­tri­ot­ic in­di­vid­u­als to go out there and en­gage in a fact-find­ing ex­er­cise so that it will as­sist the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in de­ter­min­ing whether the pub­lic dis­qui­et was found­ed in re­al­i­ty or whether it was found­ed in emo­tion­al­ism and Trinida­di­an small talk.”

Fol­low­ing the slew of com­plaints, Hinds said Pritchard and Bar­ring­ton had pre­sent­ed a re­port to Row­ley as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil

He said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, “felt that there was suf­fi­cient in this re­port to have shared it with the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), which at that time was in the process of de­ter­min­ing who would be the next Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.”

This, Hinds claimed, had led the PSC to “con­sid­er what was in front of them suf­fi­cient­ly grave and suf­fi­cient­ly im­por­tant to it­self (PSC), to ask re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Stan­ley John to rep­re­sent it (the PSC) and for John to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Say­ing that John had ex­am­ined records and in­ter­viewed per­sons in the TTPS, as well as mem­bers of the pub­lic as part of the ex­er­cise, Hinds said John’s re­port was hand­ed to the PSC as re­quest­ed, as they “con­tem­plat­ed is­sues around per­son­nel.”

“But Mr John found that in his in­ves­ti­ga­tion and his re­port, that there were is­sues that di­rect­ly im­pact­ed the busi­ness of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of T&T suf­fi­cient­ly, so that he shared that re­port with the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.”

The min­is­ter said the au­dit would pro­vide a snap­shot, “to see ex­act­ly where we are, how many li­censed firearms are out there, how many vari­a­tions, who has them, for what pur­pos­es, how much am­mu­ni­tion…these are mat­ters that will be re­vealed in the au­dit.”

Seat­ed along­side Hinds was Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc Don­ald Ja­cob, who con­firmed that the TTPS was al­so con­duct­ing a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion as it re­lates to the firearms with­in the coun­try.

Fol­low­ing the in­for­ma­tion con­tained in John’s re­port, DCP Ja­cob said it was de­cid­ed that a thor­ough au­dit be done in­to the Firearms Sec­tion so they would know what ex­act­ly has been go­ing on in that di­vi­sion.

Pressed to say if cur­rent FUL hold­ers could find their FULs be­ing re­scind­ed, Ja­cob said, “Def­i­nite­ly.”

He said Sec­tion 22 of the Firearms Act was clear on the as­pect of re­call as it re­lat­ed to firearms.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he stressed, “If some­one vi­o­lates the use of that firearm as re­quired, the firearm can al­so be seized by the po­lice.”

DCP Ja­cob said there have al­ways been pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive is­sues com­ing out of the Firearms Sec­tion and the speed with which some ap­pli­ca­tions had been grant­ed, which would now form part of the au­dit.