Improper handling of weapons, being kept by the police for licensed firearm holders, has left the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) unable to trace more than 40 weapons to any particular owner. 

In an advertisement published in yesterday's Gleaner, the JCF requested that the owners of 81 firearms come in and retrieve their weapons from the Clarendon police.

However, checks by The Gleaner revealed that an error was made in the published advertisement, in which many of the weapons attributed to a particular person were, in fact, of unknown ownership.

Supt Dayton Henry, in charge of the Clarendon police, admitted that only 24 of the 81 advertised weapons could be attributed to a named owner.

Henry said the tags on many of the weapons were damaged, leaving the owners' names unrecognisable. 

Tags dry rot 

"The armoury is normally hot and, based on constant handling during the process of change of command of the division, when these firearms are checked off, the tags dry rot and disintegrate over a period of time," he said.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Leon Rose, head of the JCF Support and Services Branch, said the critical information for retrieval of a weapon from the police was the name and address of the owner.

Rose said a weapon would be destroyed if it remained unclaimed for some time after being advertised. 

Safe keeping 

The firearms advertised had been left in police custody after the owners surrendered them due to planned travel overseas. By law, a firearm must be turned in to the police for safe keeping if an owner ventures outside of the island. These firearms may also be placed in the custody of the police as the owners may have died and the weapons turned in by relatives.

Henry said the Clarendon division armoury was being overloaded with privately owned firearms, and that efforts to get them back to their owners was an attempt to create space in the facility.

Some of the listed firearms have been in the possession of the Clarendon police since the 1950s.