Gun hunt heats up - Firearm body to report retired senior cop and others to Ellington

 Glenroy Sinclair, Assignment Coordinator

As the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) intensifies its probe into the whereabouts of 174 unlicensed firearms, a retired senior police officer has been included in a list to be sent to Police Commissioner Owen Ellington for him to take the appropriate action.

"We don't have the power to charge them, the police do. We can only revoke their firearm licences," a high-ranking official at the FLA told The Gleaner yesterday.

Probe continues

In the case of the retired senior officer, he has been asked to account for two 9-mm Glock pistols, for which he got permits in May 2006 at the St Andrew Central Police Division.

"There has been dialogue between the FLA and this retired officer, but to date, the weapons have not been presented for inspection and recertification, but the probe continues," FLA chairman Errol Strong, told The Gleaner yesterday.

Less than a week after The Gleaner broke the story, Ellington, in the weekly Jamaica Constabulary Force Orders, revealed that several members of the police force had breached the Firearms Act by failing to renew their licences and take their weapons to the FLA for inspection.

The commissioner reminded police personnel that any act of disobedience of the law by them reflected poorly on the image of the police force.

"We want to know where the guns are, some of which date from as far back as two decades. The record is showing that they were issued to police personnel," Strong stressed.

He said that since The Gleaner article published last week, 23 weapons had been turned in for inspection and recertification.

"Some of those that came in were not even on the list we inherited," said Strong.

He explained that in one case, a gun which had not been licensed over the past 23 years, turned up in the same box in which it had been purchased.

glenroy.sinclair@gleanerjm.com