Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

De­spite mul­ti­ple in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions, 89 po­lice firearms re­main un­ac­count­ed for, months af­ter the mur­der of act­ing cor­po­ral Anus­ka Ever­s­ley and the theft of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) con­firmed that sev­er­al in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven ex­er­cis­es have been car­ried out in an ef­fort to re­cov­er the miss­ing weapons, but those op­er­a­tions have so far been un­suc­cess­ful. Po­lice said a par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tion is al­so on­go­ing, led by the team that con­duct­ed the au­dit in­to the miss­ing firearms.

The TTPS said the fourth sus­pect be­ing sought is not want­ed in con­nec­tion with Ever­s­ley’s mur­der. How­ev­er, a war­rant has been is­sued for his ar­rest in re­la­tion to nar­cotics al­leged­ly found at his home, and in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve he may have as­sist­ed in con­ceal­ing and traf­fick­ing the stolen firearms.

Po­lice said a re­volver, be­lieved to be one of the stolen weapons, was re­cov­ered af­ter a man was ar­rest­ed in the Cou­va dis­trict.

An­oth­er firearm, a pis­tol, was re­cov­ered in the West­ern Di­vi­sion, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors have been un­able to link it to the orig­i­nal theft.

In ad­di­tion to the three men cur­rent­ly be­fore the courts, two oth­er peo­ple were de­tained dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, af­ter re­view­ing the ev­i­dence, in­ves­ti­ga­tors de­ter­mined there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to charge them.

The TTPS did not dis­close how much am­mu­ni­tion re­mains miss­ing.

Ever­s­ley was found mur­dered in­side the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion on April 19, when of­fi­cers al­so dis­cov­ered that a large quan­ti­ty of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion had been stolen. In the af­ter­math of the in­ci­dent, all firearms and am­mu­ni­tion stored at mu­nic­i­pal po­lice sta­tions were or­dered trans­ferred to TTPS sta­tions.

Crime Stop­pers had 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.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port of Spain on May 21, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said an In­ter­pol Red No­tice had been is­sued for a fourth sus­pect be­lieved to have fled the coun­try.

At that time, po­lice said 44 firearms and more than 900 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion had been re­cov­ered.

On April 28, three men—Ever­s­ley’s col­league, Con­sta­ble Ji­van “Big­gs” Coop­er, Kwame Arnold, 20, and Nicholas “Nico” Ram­dass, all of Clax­ton Bay—ap­peared be­fore the court charged with four of­fences, in­clud­ing mur­der, pos­ses­sion of firearms, pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion and rob­bing Ever­s­ley of 114 pis­tols, one re­volver, six shot­guns, two MPX sub­ma­chine guns, 173 firearm mag­a­zines, 4,355 rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion, 30 rounds of 12-gauge am­mu­ni­tion and ten rounds of .38 am­mu­ni­tion.