(Trinidad Express) – The wife of a soldier who drove into the West End Police Station in an attempt to escape carjackers, who were holding her at gunpoint in her car, was shot dead in front of the station on Wednesday.
The police station, which was no doubt considered a safe haven by Camille Daniel, itself became a crime scene and was cordoned off with crime scene tape after the killing.
Police said at around 1.45 pm, Daniel, 39, had gone to Factory Road, Diego Martin, to meet a female friend who worked in the area. As the two women sat chatting in the car, three men entered the car and settled in the back seat.
One of them, armed with a gun, ordered Daniel, of Finch Drive, River Estate, Diego Martin, to drive as they dictated directions. Daniel decided to steer the car onto the Wendy Fitzwilliam Boulevard and into the West End station to seek help.
The brave decision proved fatal for the mother of one, as the gunman shot her once from the back as she drove through the front gate of the station. She died moments after being shot, but not before her Nissan Almera crashed into a culvert at the end of the station’s front yard.
One of her attackers jumped out the car near the station’s gate and ran away on foot, while the two remaining assailants got out of the car after it crashed.
The image of the man who fled first was captured on a station camera and he was caught and later brought in for questioning, officers said. The other two men left the car after it crashed, jumped the outer wall of the station and fled along the Diego Martin Main Road with officers from the station in pursuit.
Several officers from the Western Division later conducted searches in the area. A reported shootout in Richplain moments later was said to be linked to the incident. Several men were brought in following those searches, officers said.
Daniel’s husband, Stanley Nottingham, a Lance Corporal in the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, could hardly restrain his emotions after viewing his wife’s body in the front seat of the car, which sat mere metres from the front steps of the station.
Officers told the Express that he was counselled by a social worker from the Victim Support Unit after viewing the body, as was the other woman who was in the car at the time of the incident.