Trinidad cops kill 3 in forest shootout

(Trinidad Guardian) Three peo­ple were killed and one in­jured in two sep­a­rate po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings in east Trinidad yes­ter­day.

Po­lice of­fi­cers have al­so launched a man­hunt for two oth­er sus­pects who were in­volved in one of the al­leged shootouts and who were be­lieved to be part of a home in­va­sion in Ma­tu­ri­ta, Ari­ma, that even­tu­al­ly led to the triple killings.

In that in­ci­dent, po­lice said at about 11 am of­fi­cers act­ing on in­tel­li­gence went in­to a forest­ed area near Dump Road, Ari­ma, where they were greet­ed by gun­fire. The of­fi­cers re­turned fire.

Three men were lat­er found dead. Po­lice said they re­cov­ered two re­volvers near the bod­ies of two of the men.

One of them was iden­ti­fied as pris­on­er Ted­dy Singh, 26, of Ari­ma. Singh made a dar­ing es­cape from the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates’ Court on May 15, short­ly af­ter he was tak­en to the court by a pris­on­er trans­port van.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, Singh was placed in the court’s hold­ing bay when he man­aged to es­cape. He was an in­mate of the Gold­en Grove Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca. Singh, whose last known ad­dress was La Re­treat Road, Ari­ma, was charged with mur­der in De­cem­ber 2014.

How­ev­er, the two oth­er men are yet to be iden­ti­fied.

In the oth­er in­ci­dent, which oc­curred dur­ing an ex­er­cise la­belled Op­er­a­tion Strike Back, of­fi­cers from the Pin­to Po­lice Post and Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol (ERP) re­spond­ed to a re­port of a home in­va­sion at Ma­tu­ri­ta, Ari­ma, in which one of the fe­male vic­tims was as­sault­ed.

When of­fi­cers ar­rived on the scene around 5 am, three sus­pects were still on the premis­es and be­gan shoot­ing at the po­lice. The of­fi­cers re­turned fire but two of the men es­caped. The third sus­pect was shot in the knee and was ar­rest­ed by po­lice. He was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mount Hope where he was treat­ed and ward­ed un­der po­lice guard.

At the scene yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives of the dead men cried un­con­trol­lably as the po­lice brought the bod­ies out of the forest­ed area. Singh’s claimed they did not know who the oth­er two men were.

One woman, who said she is Singh’s moth­er, begged po­lice to see her son’s face.

“We just want to see him. Why can’t we see him? You mean to tell me alyuh shoot him up so much that we can’t see his face? That’s all I want. I want to see his face on his fi­nal day. I want to tell him good­bye. Please let me just tell him good­bye!” the woman was heard scream­ing as she cried and begged the po­lice.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive who al­so wished not to be iden­ti­fied al­leged the men were am­bushed and killed in cold blood. Rel­a­tives said it wasn’t end­ing there but they didn’t elab­o­rate what they meant.

The ex­er­cis­es were co­or­di­nat­ed by Ag ACP Mc Don­ald Ja­cob and spear­head­ed by Ag Snr Supt Cur­tis Paul and in­clud­ed of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, In­ter-Agency Task Force, Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, North East­ern Di­vi­sion, East­ern Di­vi­sion, Ca­nine Unit and Air Sup­port Unit.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

Man found dead in San Raphael

The body of an uniden­ti­fied man was found in San Raphael at the break of dawn yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said the body was found ly­ing on the ground near a ve­hi­cle they be­lieve was stolen.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 5.30 am passers­by no­ticed the body close to a car near a bridge along the main road. Po­lice said there was one sin­gle gun­shot wound to the head. The body was re­moved to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion is asked to con­tact the po­lice at 482-GARY, 800 TIPS, 555, 999 or the near­est po­lice sta­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.