THE Royal Saint Lucia Police Force (RSLPF) is hoping to restore its image after Sergeant of Police Ricardo Jerson Charlemagne was charged in connection with the disappearance of an M16 rifle last month.
“The theft of the M16 was a hard hit for the Royal St. Lucia Police Force,” Acting Commissioner of Police, Verne Garde, said recently.
“In every organisation you will find individuals who are generally corrupt and from time to time we will do all that we can to try to unroot these people from the organisation,” the CoP told HTS NewsForce.
Garde said the RSLPF will continue the investigation to ensure it is successfully brought to court.
“The police force is in a very delicate position in regards to its image island-wide and also regionally,” he stated.
“We want to do everything that we can to restore that image. And as such, we would not allow anybody to cause any kind of embarrassment to the organisation without [the individual facing] … the full brunt of the law. As a result, we have arrested and charged a particular officer,” he said.
He said that the recovery of the weapon “was done through a lot of hard work through the genuine officers in the organization. We put our best foot forward to ensure that all intelligence processes work seamlessly so that we could try to recover this and other nefarious weapons in Saint Lucia. I’m happy the weapon has been recovered and, of course, the recovery supplements the investigation which is going on currently.”
On February 21, the RSLPF said the Major Crimes Unit had initiated investigations into a missing M16 rifle from the Gros Islet Police Station.
During the conduct of these investigations, “detectives had cause to arrest a serving member of the RSLPF,” a press release said, adding that the officer was assisting with the process.
Four days later, the RSLPF said Charlemagne was escorted before the First District Court, where he made a bail application.
Charlemagne was denied bail and was consequently remanded to the Bordelais Correctional Facility.