Taxi operator charged for missing firearm at Tryall Villas
Published:Tuesday | June 7, 2022 | 12:07 AMBryan Miller/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
A taxi operator at the Tryall Hotel and Villas, Balfour Hutchinson, has been arrested and charged with the disappearance of two firearms from a villa on that property. Hutchinson was charged on Friday, May 27, and offered bail on Monday, May 30.
The case will be up for mention on Tuesday, June 21, in the Lucea Parish Court.
Reports are that one of the property’s villa owners, a licensed firearm holder, gave Hutchinson his firearm for safekeeping during his absence. Upon his return, he was told by Hutchinson that the firearms were locked away inside the villa. However, when the villa was opened the firearms were not found.
The compound’s security personnel and the Hanover police were called in, and after preliminary investigations, Hutchinson, a Jamaica Union of Taxi Association taxi operator, was arrested and charged on two counts of larceny of firearm and criminal negligence.
Hutchinson is out on $300,000 bail, with one to three sureties. He is to surrender his travel documents and report to the police every Monday.
The Gleaner was told that the Firearms Licensing Authority has been notified about the matter as investigations continue.