Police guns used in murders

BY KARYL WALKER Investigative Coverage Unit icu@jamaicaobserver.com

Thursday, February 11, 2010

BALLISTIC tests have shown that several gun murders have been committed with weapons registered to the police armoury and stores, impeccable Observer sources said yesterday.

Hard statistics were not immediately available on the number of murders linked to police guns -- which were either rented or sold to criminals -- but the revelation yesterday suggested that unscrupulous cops have for a while been illegally removing weapons from the constabulary's armoury.

"We have identified a number of recycled weapons from the armoury and ballistics have shown that they were used to commit murders," the high-level Observer source said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigations.

Jamaica last year had a record 1,680 murders, one of the highest in the world outside of war-torn areas.

Forensic auditors have since last week been pouring over the armoury, reviewing security procedures and hoping to unearth clues about the movement of state guns to the underworld, following the dramatic arrest of a highly favoured police sergeant.

In a clinical raid that was immediately rewarded by Acting Police Commissioner Owen Ellington, the police netted 19 guns, 10,600 rounds of assorted ammunition, police vests and $787,000 in cash at two locations in East Kingston and later traced the guns, ammunition and police vests to the armoury.

Two civilian workers and a businessman have also been arrested in connection with the find. None of the arrested persons have yet been charged.

The Observer's own investigations have uncovered that security has been lapse at the armoury for years and the number of weapons that may have been removed from the sensitive area could be mind-boggling.

"There is no security down there, no closed-circuit TV system, no secure entry system, only a lock and a key. It is crazy," the source marvelled.

The armoury is run by the constabulary's administration arm, which is headed by Deputy Commissioner Jevene Bent. But it's a deputy superintendent who has direct control of the armoury and stores and is the one who controls the keys to the section where weapons and ammunition are stored, the source stated.

The source also rued the fact that despite the systems at the armoury being in place for decades, no one had decided to examine them until the embarrassing arms seizure.

"Anyone could access that key. Systems and procedures were not in place and there was not even 24-hour security. The Police High Command should have provided proper infrastructure," the source suggested.

A day after the cache of weapons was discovered, Ellington announced that security procedures at the armoury were adequate but it was a breach of trust which resulted in the weapons being removed.

But the source dismissed Ellington's claim.

"You can't trust people in those sensitive areas. You need to put in place systems which make it extremely difficult for any breaches to occur," said the source.

The armoury and stores is supposed to be a sterile storage area for all the weapons which are distributed to the 19 police divisions across the island as well as weapons which have been taken off the streets, are defective or have been taken out of commission.

The smashing of the arms-smuggling ring has dealt the force another black eye and should bring police officers of a higher rank under pressure to account for the lapse in security.

However, the source was not too optimistic that any cop of a gazetted rank would be disciplined.

"It should be so, but you won't see that in this organisation," the source told the Observer.

Yesterday, members of the Inspectorate of the Constabulary pressed ahead with their audit to determine the exact number of guns, ammunition, vests and other equipment which may have gone missing from the armoury.

"The audit will take ages but it should be interesting to see what it finds out," the source said with obvious scepticism.

More than 10,000 murders have been committed in Jamaica in the last decade and the majority of them were committed with the gun.

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Police guns used in murders