An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has in­sist­ed there was noth­ing un­usu­al about the search of a locked room at the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion on Tues­day.

This, as TTPS Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer ASP Owie Rus­sell yes­ter­day again de­nied re­ports that a spe­cial­ist po­lice unit had raid­ed the sta­tion. He al­so dis­missed claims that of­fi­cers had been tak­en in­to cus­tody, or that search war­rants had been ex­e­cut­ed at the homes of of­fi­cers as­signed to the sta­tion.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Rus­sell said po­lice re­ceived in­for­ma­tion on Ju­ly 6 that a room, orig­i­nal­ly used as a gym be­fore be­ing con­vert­ed in­to an of­fice, had been locked and that the key could not be lo­cat­ed.

Read­ing from a pre­pared state­ment, Rus­sell said a thor­ough search even­tu­al­ly led to the key and of­fi­cers were able to en­ter the room.

“Of­fi­cers dis­cov­ered eight firearms and am­mu­ni­tion ex­hibits,” he said.

Rus­sell added that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing to de­ter­mine the com­plainants and the re­spec­tive mat­ters to which the ex­hibits are con­nect­ed.

“We wish to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly state that no po­lice of­fi­cer is cur­rent­ly in cus­tody in con­nec­tion with these ex­hibits,” he said.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, no search war­rants have been ex­e­cut­ed at the res­i­dence or prop­er­ty of any po­lice of­fi­cer, and no of­fi­cer is present­ly re­gard­ed as a sus­pect in re­la­tion to this mat­ter.”

Rus­sell al­so dis­missed claims cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia that a sergeant at­tached to the sta­tion was on the run, ex­plain­ing the of­fi­cer was grant­ed ap­proved va­ca­tion leave.