COP, FAMILY IN SAFE HOUSE

Felicia Dyer Francis was seated in the driver’s seat of her white Nissan Tiida car outside the South-East PoS Seventh Day Adventist Church on Piccadilly Street, Port-of-Spain where she had been praying moments earlier, when she was shot four times.

Speaking with Newsday yesterday, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) in charge of crime, Irvin Hackshaw, said the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) is providing all of the necessary support to PC Dyer and his family, in the form of counselling. He also confirmed tha the officer and his family are now in protective custody while the Homicide Bureau continues to work around the clock to bring closure to this murder investigation involving the senseless murder of PC Dyer’s mother.

Newsday understands that PC Dyer was recently placed in a unit based at the Besson Street Police Station, PoS - the Firearm Interdiction Team (FIT). This unit was mandated to recover illegal arms and ammunition throughout the country.

According to reports, last Tuesday (November 1), PC Dyer and other members of FIT, acting on information, went to a house in the Caroni area where they detained a 29-year-old businessman and seized a nine mm gun, 14 rounds of ammunition and a quantity of marijuana.

Newsday also understands that shortly before midnight last Thursday, PC Dyer received a telephone call from someone who advised him that attempts would be made to kill him, his mother and his sister. PC Dyer reported the matter to officers at the Besson Street Police Station.

Hours later, his mother was killed. Yesterday, homicide sources told Newsday that the Cyber Crime Unit of the TTPS, as well as other units, are working closely the Homicide Bureau to deal swiftly with this investigation, so that the perpetrator/ s of the murder of PC Dyer’s mother could be apprehended and brought to justice. Newsday also spoke with a senior officer of the JPU, who said PC Dyer has been barred from speaking with the press because the investigation is at a sensitive stage.

Following the murder of Dyer’s mother, police obtained CCTV footage of the murder scene, which was reviewed over the weekend. Yesterday, the officer’s colleagues at Besson Street Police Station told Newsday they were deeply troubled by the murder of Dyer’s mother and that they were praying for PC Dyer and his family to get through their troubles at this time.

Officers also said they would continue to ‘give their all’ to recover illegal arms and ammunition from the hands of the criminal element.

PC Dyer’s brother and sister, who both live abroad, were expected to arrive in the country yesterday. Newsday understands that they too will be given full police protection while they are here. Although funeral arrangements have not yet been finalised, it is expected that PC Dyer and members of his family will be given a ‘full escort’ to the service by heavily-armed police officers.