{"id":2185,"date":"2010-01-02T02:00:19","date_gmt":"2010-01-02T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=2185"},"modified":"2010-01-02T02:01:24","modified_gmt":"2010-01-02T06:01:24","slug":"police-station-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=2185","title":{"rendered":"Police Station Theft"},"content":{"rendered":"

newsday.co.tt\/editorial<\/a>
\nJanuary 02, 2010<\/i><\/p>\n

Police<\/a>The reported disappearance of US$94,000 seized from an alleged drug dealer and which had been lodged in the property room at the Couva Police Station should be thoroughly investigated.<\/p>\n

The property keeper is reported to have discovered the money missing, about 5 pm on December 29, when he found the property room unlocked and an envelope in which the money was contained, missing.
\n
\nThe money formed part of the exhibits in the court case against the suspected drug lord who had been charged, among other things, with unlawful possession of it. Its unauthorised, indeed illegal removal from the station\u2019s property room is not only an embarrassment to the Police Service, as Acting Commissioner of Police, James Philbert, has stated, but to concerned citizens as well.<\/p>\n

We demand action and we demand results. Coming so soon after the discovery in August of a cache of arms in the ceiling of the St Joseph Police Station the theft of the US$94,000 has the potential to erode confidence in the Police Service. It is also distinctly unfair to the good name of honest officers as it is a clear case of lawbreakers in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service. The arms, incidentally, had been earlier removed from the property room of the St Joseph Police Station.<\/p>\n

The removal of the money has made a mockery of the instructions by the Acting Commissioner of Police that measures be implemented with respect to the lodging of court exhibits. These instructions had followed on the cache of arms scandal at the police station at St Joseph. What were the measures instituted? We have posed the question as the removal of the money from the property room of the Couva Police Station appears to have rendered these \u201cmeasures\u201d ineffective.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, whatever became of the investigation which had been ordered by Philbert into the incident at the St Joseph Police Station? Was the culprit (or were the culprits) found and charged? If so, when? What did the investigations unearth? We ask these questions, not merely on behalf of our readers, but on behalf as well of every other concerned citizen in our twin-island State.<\/p>\n

That investigation is clearly taking too long.<\/p>\n

Philbert, on December 30, confirmed that senior officers from the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau (ACIB) were investigating the disappearance of the money, adding that he had already received an interim report. He advised a Newsday representative he was awaiting yet another report from investigators. \u201cWe are pursuing the matter vigorously and at the end of the investigations firm decisions will be made,\u201d the Acting CoP assured.<\/p>\n

We do not question Philbert\u2019s determination to have the matter of the US$94,000 missing from the property room at the Couva Police Station solved. Nonetheless, we are concerned that while he and the senior superintendent specifically assigned to the case, along with other senior officers, genuinely want a resolution to the embarrassing incident there may be others in the Service not similarly disposed.<\/p>\n

While, admittedly, records at the Couva Police Station which indicate when the money was last lodged and all of the station\u2019s diaries which were in use at the time of the discovery of the missing money, have been seized by ACIB detectives there are clearly elements determined to frustrate any breakthrough.<\/p>\n

The Trinidad and Tobago dollar equivalent of the stolen US$94,000 is some TT$599,720 and for a part of this it appears there may be those who may be inclined to \u201csee no evil and speak no evil.\u201d In the process they do the Police Service, the country and themselves an injustice.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, the serial numbers of the US currency notes were recorded when the money was seized. These should be circulated to the various commercial banks in Trinidad and Tobago. The breakthrough may lie in the execution of this strategy.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.newsday.co.tt\/editorial\/0,113509.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

newsday.co.tt\/editorial January 02, 2010 The reported disappearance of US$94,000 seized from an alleged drug dealer and which had been lodged in the property room at the Couva Police Station should be thoroughly investigated. The property keeper is reported to have discovered the money missing, about 5 pm on December 29, when he found the property … Continue reading Police Station Theft<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,186],"tags":[85,44,1041],"class_list":["post-2185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-law","tag-abuse","tag-crime-in-tt","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2187,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185\/revisions\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}