ComPol on the Revocation of Gun Licenses

Chester Williams

Commissioner of Police Chester Williams also commented on the issuance of a gun license and the process by which it is done. He spoke specific to two cases where he revoked the licenses. In the case of Marybeth Wade where her document fraudulently ended up being signed and was revoked one month later. And then in the case of another who he confessed he was forced to give a license to under the previous administration, but earlier this year was able to revoke that license.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Before the elections I was again asked by Mister Peyrefitte and even after the elections, I was asked by him to correct the name. And the truth be told, I refused to correct the name. I’ll be honest. I certainly did not want to give him a gun license. Najera himself tried to reach out to me through other persons and I said I am not going to issue it. Nonetheless he went to an attorney and the attorney wrote a lawyer letter, which make sense because the truth is the Police Act does give the minister the powers to instruct the commissioner in writing and I got a written instruction from the then minister to issue the license. And so Mister Banner’s letter was to say that the fact that the minister had issues instructions to issue the license and you had issued it just because the name was spelt wrong, you must comply with the law and issue the license. So, if not then he was going to take us to court. So to avoid a court matter, I decided I am going to accede to the lawyer’s request and issue the license, but at that same token I said to myself that I will issue, but I am going to monitor him very closely because as he slip, I will take it away. And it so happens that he got the gun license and in 2023, I think this year, he got married and at his wedding, I took out his gun and fired multiple shots in the air. I got the video of it, he was arrested and charged, went before the court, he pled guilty, the court confiscated his firearm and I revoked the gun license. The first vetting that came with Marybeth’s application certainly was not done by the officer whose name appeared as the vetting officer. I did not know that at that specific time when the licence was approved. As I said before, someone who saw her with the gun and know the type of person she is informed me of who she was and based on that, I then went and retrieved back her file. I looked at it again and I could have seen why I approved the license cause the vetting was impeccable. I asked him to re-vet Marybeth and he re-vetted her and he sent the new vetting to me which he did and the vetting that he did mirrored what he said about Marybeth and what other persons had said about her. Based on that, I told them to go and search her home, take away the gun and I revoked the license.”

Reporter

“How do you know that he was not misspeaking or he wasn’t lying?”

Chester Williams

“We investigated the matter and there was nothing to show that he was lying.”