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T&T Police Say Guns Recovered “Just A Drop In The Bucket”

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, September 14, 2016 (CMC) – Trinidad and Tobago police, today, said they had recovered more than 500 guns so far this year, describing the seizure as a “drop in the bucket”, and calling for the strengthening of the country’s borders.

The police said that they are fighting an uphill battle in that while they have been successful in getting illegal guns off the street, more and more weapons seem to be making their way into the hands of criminals.

“Trinidad and Tobago Police Service would like to get more information with regards to where illegal firearms and ammunition come into our country,” said the police communications officer, Assistant Superintendent, Michael Pierre.

“We would also like to see greater emphasis and effort being placed at our borders, because, as mentioned previously by the previous commissioner, we are not manufacturers of firearms and ammunition and if the efforts of the Trinidad and Tobago Service in retrieving so many arms and ammunition, yet still it appears to be just a drop in the bucket, then our country must strengthen its borders to prevent these firearms and ammunition from entering”.

Pierre said that so far this year, law enforcement authorities have seized 545 firearms and 1667 assorted ammunition.

He told reporters at the weekly police news conference the seizure included 128 revolvers, 263 pistols, 64 shotguns, eight sub-machine guns, 26 rifles and 40 homemade shot guns.

So far more than 315 people have been killed here this year, with most of the murders involving the use of guns.

The disclosure by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service comes less than 48 hours after the head of the Port of Spain-based Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Implementing Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) warned that the high rate of guns and ammunition seizure in the Caribbean is very worrying.

Speaking at an European Union-sponsored panel discussion in Barbados, Francis Forbes, the former police commissioner in Jamaica, said that crime is threatening the entire region.

“It is alarming,” he said, noting that 2,178 murders, 1596 rapes, 10, 227 robberies, 2,488 illegal guns and over 32,000 rounds of ammunition had been reported in the Caribbean.

He said between 2006 and last year, 20,000 illegal firearms had been removed from the streets of Caribbean countries.

“But even as we celebrate this success, we must remind ourselves that currently there are…weapons very difficult to trace, modular weapons and 3-D printed weapons,” he added.

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