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Friday, February 21, 2025

Regiment hunts for culprits using their bullets in crimes

by

Gail Alexander
784 days ago
20221229
UNC Senator Wade Mark speaks during the Opposition’s media conference yesterday.

UNC Senator Wade Mark speaks during the Opposition’s media conference yesterday.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment (TTR)says there are safe­guards in place to keep its am­mu­ni­tion from falling in­to the hands of crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

The reg­i­ment made the state­ment yes­ter­day, af­ter it was re­vealed shells bear­ing the ini­tials TTR had been found by po­lice on at least three crime scenes for the month of De­cem­ber so far.

In a re­lease, the reg­i­ment said it was aware of “am­mu­ni­tion bear­ing mark­ings sim­i­lar to the am­mu­ni­tion au­tho­rised for Reg­i­ment use on­ly.”

It said it will work tire­less­ly with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to find the cul­prits us­ing the am­mu­ni­tion in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The reg­i­ment said it in­tends to con­tin­ue to pro­vide full co­op­er­a­tion “in­to the ver­i­fi­ca­tion and in­ves­ti­ga­tion of this se­ri­ous mat­ter.”

Based on the out­come of the re­view, the reg­i­ment said, “Nec­es­sary mil­i­tary dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tions will be in­sti­tut­ed to ad­dress any con­tra­ven­tions of crim­i­nal law.”

The mat­ter was raised yes­ter­day by UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark, who want­ed to know if “crim­i­nals” are be­ing re­cruit­ed in­to the T&T Reg­i­ment.

Mark raised the ques­tion at yes­ter­day’s UNC me­dia brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, as he queried the dis­cov­ery of Reg­i­ment am­mu­ni­tion at crime scenes.

UNC MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said noth­ing was heard from the TTPS on the dis­cov­ery of Reg­i­ment-marked spent shells at some in­ci­dents.

Mark said it was dis­turb­ing and dan­ger­ous, es­pe­cial­ly since tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey was used to pur­chase am­mu­ni­tion for the T&T De­fence Force and that am­mu­ni­tion could end up be­ing used in the mur­ders of cit­i­zens.

He said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds must as­cer­tain how the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) am­mu­ni­tion can find its way in­to crim­i­nals’ hands to mur­der peo­ple.

He added, “Are we re­cruit­ing crim­i­nals in the T&T Reg­i­ment? I read over the last two years al­so where Reg­i­ment per­son­nel were ac­cused and charged—the Pen­ny­wise is­sue comes to mind, and that there are peo­ple in the army that found their way in­to the ‘ranks’ and there ap­pears to be some col­lu­sion with the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. The TTDF and TTPS are to pro­tect and serve and not to be rent­ing or sell­ing guns and am­mu­ni­tion to killers!”

UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal said they ob­tained in­for­ma­tion from the TTPS that a to­tal of 108 le­gal firearms were “mis­placed, stolen, ne­glect­ed or oth­er­wise re­port­ed” to the TTPS over 2017-2021.

Mooni­lal re­buked Gov­ern­ment state­ments giv­ing the im­pres­sion the 108 firearms were used for crime.

He al­so said he felt the TTPS was count­ing back­ward with the year’s mur­der toll num­bers and “hop­ing it would hold at 599” on Old Year’s Night.”

But it’s still T&T’s high­est,” he said.

He said in 2023 he’ll be talk­ing about the TTPS ve­hi­cle sup­ply be­ing back to “square one” af­ter new ones were ob­tained—but 150 were sent to the “grave­yard.”

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