KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Con­sol­i­dat­ed As­so­ci­a­tion of Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice (CAMP) is ac­cus­ing State au­thor­i­ties of aban­don­ing mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cers in the af­ter­math of the mur­der of WPC Anus­ka Ever­s­ley, even as fu­ner­al arrange­ments for the slain of­fi­cer have been con­firmed.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, CAMP said of­fi­cers are “mourn­ing” and op­er­at­ing un­der “trau­ma, un­cer­tain­ty and si­lence” fol­low­ing the April 19 in­ci­dent at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion.

The as­so­ci­a­tion de­scribed the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Ever­s­ley’s death as “ex­treme­ly trau­mat­ic” and the loss of large quan­ti­ties of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion as “very dis­qui­et­ing,” warn­ing that of­fi­cers have been left with­out mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment or sup­port from those re­spon­si­ble for their wel­fare.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, no se­nior of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice or the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion have en­gaged af­fect­ed of­fi­cers since the in­ci­dent.

CAMP fur­ther claimed that re­quests for time off have re­port­ed­ly been de­nied, with of­fi­cers be­ing re­quired to con­tin­ue du­ties de­spite the emo­tion­al im­pact of los­ing a col­league.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so raised con­cerns about pub­lic crit­i­cism sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent, say­ing of­fi­cers are be­ing judged amid “spec­u­la­tion, com­men­tary and mis­in­for­ma­tion,” while there has been no of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion from au­thor­i­ties. It said this has con­tributed to a sense of aban­don­ment among of­fi­cers.

CAMP is call­ing for im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion, in­clud­ing emer­gency psy­cho­log­i­cal and trau­ma sup­port for af­fect­ed of­fi­cers, di­rect and of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion from re­spon­si­ble au­thor­i­ties and clear op­er­a­tional lead­er­ship at the sta­tion lev­el. It al­so called for an end to what it de­scribed as a “pub­lic tri­al” of of­fi­cers in the ab­sence of es­tab­lished facts.

“Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Of­fi­cers have served this coun­try with dis­ci­pline and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. We will not be dis­card­ed in our mo­ment of great­est need,” the state­ment said, adding that of­fi­cers re­main com­mit­ted to their oath to pro­tect T&T.

The as­so­ci­a­tion has put au­thor­i­ties “on no­tice” to act now.

CAMP, in its state­ment, said mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers re­main com­mit­ted to their du­ties and to serv­ing the coun­try, even as they con­tin­ue to deal with the im­pact of the in­ci­dent.

Mean­while, fu­ner­al arrange­ments have been an­nounced for Ever­s­ley, who was shot and killed dur­ing the April 19 breach at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion along La­dy Hailes Av­enue.

Ac­cord­ing to a fam­i­ly no­tice, Ever­s­ley, 41, will be laid to rest fol­low­ing a 2 pm ser­vice on Mon­day at the Faith Cen­tre, lo­cat­ed on Prince of Wales Street, San Fer­nan­do. Her fam­i­ly said she will be re­mem­bered as a “beloved moth­er, daugh­ter, sis­ter and friend.”

Ed­i­tor’s note: Since the death of WPC Ever­s­ley, sev­er­al spellings of her first name have been is­sued in of­fi­cial re­leas­es. We have since ver­i­fied from her fam­i­ly that the cor­rect spelling is Anus­ka. We apol­o­gise for the er­ror.