Guns for rent in T&T

A top security officer charged Monday that security officers are renting out their firearms frequently to criminals to commit heinous crimes, including murder.

The President of the Estate Police Association (EPA) Andrew Dardaine made the statement at a stakeholders’ meeting hosted by the Police Service Commission.

"Criminals have infiltrated the security industry. There are no two ways about that. Firearms being rented out is frequent by certain companies that we know of, and I would hope the Commissioner of Police would understand what we are saying," Dardaine said.

He also alleged that some security firms give their officers unloaded firearms to conduct work.

Dardaine was emphatic that guns for rent is a common practice.

"You have estate constables who would carry a firearm to a particular duty and do not return that firearm to the station or wherever he got it from, and would go directly home with it and rent it out because he was working the night," he claimed.

Dardaine also said firearms have been stolen from security firms due to “sheer negligence" and he called on the police chief to conduct for proper checks on inventories of security firms.

“Who issues Firearms Users’ Certificates? The commissioner’s office. Who issues Firearms Users’ Licences? The Police Commissioner.

“Fire him if he don’t want to do his job. Those firearms are coming back and attacking the good citizens," Dardaine said.

He charged that these things are happening in the security industry because no one is doing the proper checks and balances.

Dardaine said his organisation has been trying for the past four years to meet with acting Police Commissioner James Philbert and his predecessor, a charge that Philbert dismissed.

He said, "I don’t know what Mr Dardaine is speaking about, and I invite him to bring his evidence to me." He added that meetings have been arranged with Dardaine in the past "and each time a meeting is set it is he who has been cancelling."