Trinidad: Praise for retired senior cop as bandit killed during robbery

(Trinidad Guardian) Prais­es are pour­ing in for a re­tired po­lice su­per­in­ten­dent whose brav­ery may have saved the lives of bar pa­trons from trig­ger-hap­py ban­dits yes­ter­day.

The shootout at Mar­shall’s Ko­rner at the cor­ner of Sut­ton and Cipero Streets, San Fer­nan­do, left one ban­dit dead and the oth­er in hid­ing, but with a gun­shot wound.

Re­ports stat­ed that around 11.10 am, two Ma­yaro men were hav­ing drinks at the bar when the gun-tot­ing ban­dits con­front­ed them.

The ban­dits robbed the 28-year-old man of a gold chain and his 29-year-old friend of his mo­bile phone be­fore fir­ing a shot at the men. 

See­ing a po­ten­tial­ly dead­ly sit­u­a­tion un­fold­ing, the for­mer of­fi­cer, who re­tired over a decade ago, drew his li­censed pis­tol and fired at the ban­dits.

CCTV footage showed the ban­dits run­ning out the bar and fir­ing shots. How­ev­er, one was struck in his chest. He col­lapsed and died af­ter run­ning a few me­tres down Sut­ton Street.

A pair of rub­ber slip­pers and a Glock pis­tol were re­cov­ered found near the body by crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

Sev­en bul­let cas­ings were al­so tak­en in­to ev­i­dence.

Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was not found on the dead man and he had on­ly been iden­ti­fied as “Tal­lo” up to yes­ter­day evening.

As po­lice of­fi­cers cor­doned off Sut­ton Street, a trail of blood led them down a path where the sur­viv­ing ban­dit ran.

He was not found up un­til late yes­ter­day and po­lice have put hos­pi­tals and med­ical cen­tres on alert for any­one seek­ing treat­ment for gun­shot wounds.

Dur­ing the shootout, the rear wind­shield of a red Suzu­ki SUV that was parked out­side the bar was shat­tered by a bul­let. Oc­cu­pants of a pass­ing maxi-taxi were spared harm as an­oth­er bul­let pierced its body.

On­look­ers praised the ex-cop for his courage in tak­ing on the ban­dits, even dis­cussing his prowess with firearms, hav­ing tak­en down two gun­men.

Deputy May­or Vidya Mun­gal-Bisses­sar said that that the bold, day­light rob­bery in a busy part of the city was alarm­ing, es­pe­cial­ly since San Fer­nan­do prid­ed it­self on safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.

How­ev­er, Mun­gal-Bisses­sar ex­pressed faith that the po­lice would be able to bring pos­i­tive so­lu­tions. While there are crimes in the City, she said, the sit­u­a­tion was im­prov­ing.

Many on­look­ers had no sym­pa­thy for the dead ban­dit, but Mun­gal-Bisses­sar felt that it was still a loss.

She said: “We need to be our broth­ers’ keep­ers in an­oth­er sense as well. We need to be char­i­ta­ble, we need to look af­ter those who are needy and those who are less for­tu­nate.

“No child is a lost child. An as­sailant is some­body’s child. It’s some­body’s hus­band, some­body’s broth­er, some­body’s son, some­body’s grand­son. We can make more of an ef­fort as a com­mu­ni­ty to help these young chil­dren as they come up and pre­vent this sort of thing.

“Pre­ven­tion is al­ways bet­ter than cure I think,” Mun­gal-Bisses­sar said.