5 more officers sent on leave

Authorities have placed five additional San Fernando Municipal Police Station personnel on administrative leave, ramping up probes into the fatal shooting of acting corporal Anuska Eversley and the brazen theft of dozens of firearms and ammunition from the facility early last week. The Sunday incident has sent shockwaves through Trinidad and Tobago’s law enforcement community, triggering a sweeping internal overhaul even as investigators close in on persons of interest and recover leads on stolen weapons.

Senior law enforcement sources confirmed to local outlet Express that San Fernando Municipal Police Superintendent Dustan Renn, alongside four constables who were on duty alongside Eversley during the fatal shift, were ordered to take immediate paid leave. In a separate connected development, the contract of Senior Superintendent Cecil Santana, the station’s top command, has been terminated and not renewed. Santana, whose contract officially expired on April 5, had previously received verbal promises of an extension before the high-profile attack, but those guarantees were withdrawn in the wake of the incident, sources said.

The personnel changes extend beyond the station level: on Tuesday, Municipal Assistant Commissioner of Police Surrendra Sagramsingh was also placed on immediate administrative paid leave via an official letter dated April 21, 2026, issued by the acting permanent secretary at the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government. The correspondence explicitly noted that Sagramsingh’s leave is a precautionary step designed to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation, and does not amount to a finding of misconduct or legal liability on his part.

Investigators have clarified that the officers placed on leave are not automatically classified as suspects in Eversley’s murder or the weapons heist. Instead, the step was taken because all affected personnel had either access to areas of the station central to the probe or held operational responsibility for station security at the time of the attack.

New details on the attack itself have also emerged from law enforcement sources. Eversley was on duty the night before the killing, Saturday, and offered to secure the downstairs charge room while her two on-duty colleagues rested upstairs. Two additional officers assigned to the shift were working out of a remote sub-office on San Fernando’s Penitence Street at the time, leaving Eversley alone as the only active officer in the main station building.

Per witness and intelligence accounts, a silver vehicle was parked outside the station compound ahead of the attack. After killing Eversley, the primary suspect signaled for two accomplices waiting in the vehicle to enter the station, where the group stole multiple firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition before fleeing the scene. Investigators have named a known drug addict as the prime suspect and alleged mastermind behind the operation.

Authorities confirmed they have developed credible intelligence on the location of at least some of the stolen weapons, and have pledged to apprehend any persons found to be aiding or sheltering the suspects involved in the crime.

The security breach has sparked widespread public and political concern over gaps in internal police station security, and the severe risk that stolen law enforcement firearms could fall into the hands of criminal gangs and be used for additional violent crime. The incident has also intensified public pressure on Trinidad and Tobago’s national police service to deliver a full accounting of how the brazen attack on one of its own facilities was able to occur.