KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) is ap­peal­ing for help from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice as they say they are be­ing out­gunned by crim­i­nals.

This fol­lows the mur­der of Tele­com Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice Lim­it­ed (TSSL) of­fi­cer Hase­ly Au­gus­tine last Thurs­day. Armed ban­dits shot Au­gus­tine, 46, as he and col­leagues re­plen­ished an au­to­mat­ic teller ma­chine (ATM) at DS Plaza, Cunu­pia. Re­ports are that they were am­bushed by five ban­dits.

EPA Pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son said the union’s in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed there were not enough of­fi­cers for the cash-in-tran­sit (CIT) ex­er­cise, their ve­hi­cles were not ar­moured or air con­di­tioned and Au­gus­tine was not wear­ing a bul­let­proof vest.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence at the EPA’s of­fice in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day, Richard­son said while hold­ers of firearm user li­cences (FULs) can car­ry up to 50 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers can on­ly car­ry 25. He said this is be­cause of a decades-old pol­i­cy by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’s of­fice and means that crim­i­nals have weapons that fire more rounds than se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.

Richard­son said the EPA has writ­ten to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher who ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt and they are await­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss the is­sue.

“The crim­i­nal el­e­ment, their weapon of choice is the AR15, a high-pow­ered au­to­mat­ic ri­fle, and we car­ry pis­tols, re­volvers and shot­guns. We are not car­ry­ing the prop­er pro­tec­tion to pro­tect us against that kind of fire­pow­er,” he said.

Richard­son said Au­gus­tine was mur­dered just a month be­fore the an­niver­sary of the dead­ly Pen­ny­wise rob­bery in Sep­tem­ber 2022, when heav­i­ly armed ban­dits opened fire on an Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd ve­hi­cle. In that in­ci­dent, a three-of­fi­cer crew was on a CIT ex­er­cise at Pen­ny­wise Plaza, La Ro­maine, when gun­men with high-pow­ered firearms killed of­fi­cers Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stu­art and crit­i­cal­ly in­jured Pe­o­la Bap­tiste be­fore mak­ing off with the mon­ey.

In 2021, ban­dits killed Thor Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices of­fi­cer Kim­raj Jag­gas­sar as he worked on a de­liv­ery truck in Va­len­cia. In 2019, ban­dits mur­dered Mi4 se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Mark Nurse as he re­plen­ished an ATM at Pen­ny Savers Su­per­mar­ket in To­ba­go and in 2013, ban­dits fa­tal­ly shot Es­tate Po­lice Su­per­in­ten­dent Bert Clarke, 59, dur­ing a $17 mil­lion rob­bery in Trinci­ty.

Richard­son said the EPA re­port­ed the Pen­ny­wise in­ci­dent to the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) and is still await­ing a re­sponse.

“We are call­ing for a re­ver­sal of the pol­i­cy by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice be­cause the threat lev­el has gone up. We are call­ing for the min­i­mum lev­el of bul­let­proof vests to be lev­el three, which would pro­tect against the AR-15’s 5.56 mm round,” he said.

In a state­ment pub­lished on its Face­book page on Mon­day, Tele­com ex­pressed grief at Au­gus­tine’s death and said it re­flects the lev­el of risk and crime that chal­lenges the coun­try. Au­gus­tine had been em­ployed with the com­pa­ny since 2002.