Trinidad cop among 2 killed in Chinatown

(Trinidad Guardian) An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer and a veg­etable ven­dor were killed last night along Low­er Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, af­ter a gun­man opened fire on a Beetham man who man­aged to es­cape with mi­nor in­juries.

The in­ci­dent which oc­curred around 7 pm re­sult­ed in scared ven­dors and shop­pers flee­ing the scene in Chi­na­town.

Sgt Roger Williams of the Court & Process Branch, Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate’s Court died at hos­pi­tal min­utes af­ter the shoot­ing, while Na­toya Chris­t­ian col­lapsed on the pave­ment and died me­tres away from the stall she op­er­at­ed with her grand­moth­er.

Williams lived at Ser­raneau Road, Bel­mont.

Over­come with grief last night, Chris­t­ian’s rel­a­tives de­clined to speak when ap­proached by the Sun­day Guardian.

Chris­t­ian cel­e­brat­ed her 33rd birth­day yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, a sec­ond fe­male ven­dor who is yet to be iden­ti­fied was shot on her foot dur­ing the in­ci­dent. She was treat­ed at the hos­pi­tal and re­leased.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers said “Breast,” of Beetham, was lim­ing in the vicin­i­ty of D’Style Mall when a car stopped and the lone oc­cu­pant be­gan fir­ing at him.

Dur­ing the in­ci­dent which was over in less than five min­utes, the in­tend­ed tar­get man­aged to es­cape by run­ning in­to Gi­ant Su­per­mar­ket.

A bleed­ing Williams stag­gered in­to the mall and col­lapsed, while Chris­t­ian died on the pave­ment.

The gun­man es­caped in the wait­ing car.

As on­look­ers rushed to help the in­jured peo­ple, one man man­aged to re­trieve Williams’s ser­vice re­volver and lat­er hand­ed it over to ASP Ed­mund Cum­ber­batch of the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion.

Speak­ing briefly Sat­ur­day night, Cum­ber­batch said the reck­less shoot­ing had claimed the life of a ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cer who hap­pened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He lament­ed the loss of yet an­oth­er ser­vice­man, adding that po­lice mo­bile and foot pa­trols had al­ready been in­creased in the cap­i­tal city ahead of the Christ­mas sea­son.

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims, Cum­ber­batch sought to re­as­sure vis­i­tors and work­ers in the city that the TTPS was com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing their safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.