Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A com­pre­hen­sive re­view of se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems, su­per­vi­sion and ar­moury man­age­ment is to be un­der­tak­en across all mu­nic­i­pal po­lice di­vi­sions as au­thor­i­ties move to tight­en in­ter­nal con­trols fol­low­ing the killing of Cor­po­ral Anus­ka Ever­s­ley.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar of the T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice (TTMPS) out­lined his plans yes­ter­day be­fore meet­ing with com­man­ders from the ser­vice’s 14 mu­nic­i­pal sta­tions at the TTMPS Acad­e­my in Mara­bel­la, just days af­ter as­sum­ing lead­er­ship.

For­mer head Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh has been sent on leave pend­ing the out­come of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a ma­jor se­cu­ri­ty breach at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion on April 19. Dur­ing that in­ci­dent, Ever­s­ley was killed and a large quan­ti­ty of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion was stolen.

Mys­tar said the meet­ing was in­tend­ed not on­ly to en­gage com­man­ders, but al­so to ad­dress chal­lenges, re­view se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, and ex­am­ine ac­cess con­trol and op­er­a­tional pro­ce­dures as part of ef­forts to strength­en the ser­vice.

Not­ing that mu­nic­i­pal po­lice play a crit­i­cal role in se­cur­ing as­sets across cities, bor­oughs and mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, he said par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion would al­so be paid to dis­ci­pline and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty.

“I am go­ing to be look­ing holis­ti­cal­ly at all mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties. To­day we will be dis­cussing se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, man­age­ment of ar­mouries, ac­cess con­trol and, most im­por­tant­ly, mean­ing­ful su­per­vi­sion,” Mys­tar said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that morale among of­fi­cers at the San Fer­nan­do sta­tion was “quite low,” he ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the ser­vice would emerge stronger.

“I want to let them know that, notwith­stand­ing that sit­u­a­tion, it is not go­ing to break us. We will con­tin­ue to pro­vide the nec­es­sary se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty with­in our ju­ris­dic­tion. Un­der my lead­er­ship, I will lead from the front. What­ev­er needs fix­ing, we will fix; what­ev­er needs strength­en­ing, we will strength­en,” he said.

Mys­tar al­so re­called a re­cent meet­ing with Ever­s­ley’s hus­band and their three chil­dren.

“They are deeply ag­griev­ed, but what they in­di­cat­ed to me is that they ex­pect me to en­sure mea­sures are put in place so that some­thing like this nev­er hap­pens again,” he said.

He added that he could not pro­vide an up­date on the on­go­ing au­dit of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion with­in the TTMPS, as it is be­ing con­duct­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Fol­low­ing Ever­s­ley’s killing, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro wrote to Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen rec­om­mend­ing that TTMPS firearms be trans­ferred un­der the purview of the TTPS.

Crime Stop­pers had ini­tial­ly of­fered a $100,000 re­ward for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to ar­rests in Ever­s­ley’s mur­der, along with $5,000 for the re­cov­ery of each stolen firearm.

Hours be­fore Ever­s­ley’s fu­ner­al on Mon­day, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Con­sta­ble Ji­van “Big­gs” Coop­er, 28, of La So­phie Trace, Clax­ton Bay; Kwame Arnold, 20, of Lodge Road, Clax­ton Bay; and Nicholas “Nico” Ram­dass, 24, al­so of Lodge Road, Clax­ton Bay, ap­peared in court charged with her mur­der, pos­ses­sion of a firearm, pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion and rob­bery with vi­o­lence.

They were re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody and are ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Oc­to­ber 15.