Trinidad: Teen girls shot by police in robbery getaway car

(Trinidad Guardian) A 14-year-old form two stu­dent from a To­ba­go Sec­ondary School is said to be in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion and is fight­ing for her life af­ter she was shot in the head dur­ing an ex­change of gun­fire with po­lice yes­ter­day.

 
The girl was a pas­sen­ger in a gold Nis­san B16 ve­hi­cle, al­leged­ly used as the get­away car, fol­low­ing the rob­bery of Caribbean Jew­ellers at the Low­lands Mall on Mon­day.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around mid­day, a man dressed in Mus­lim garb posed as a cus­tomer and robbed the es­tab­lish­ment of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.5 mil­lion worth in gold and di­a­mond jew­el­ry.

The man calm­ly walked out of the store in full view of un­sus­pect­ing pa­trons of the mall.

Po­lice lat­er re­ceived in­for­ma­tion about the car and it was in­ter­cept­ed at Union Vil­lage, Whim, dur­ing a road­block. Po­lice of­fi­cers said they were fired up­on by oc­cu­pants of the ve­hi­cle and they fired back, how­ev­er they man­aged to break through the road­block.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that of­fi­cers gave chase, but found that the ve­hi­cle had crashed in­to a light pole a short dis­tance away.

When of­fi­cers checked the ve­hi­cle, the 14-year-old girl of Bagatelle, To­ba­go, was found with the gun­shot wound to the head.

She was rushed to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. Po­lice say they al­so found a quan­ti­ty of jew­el­ry and Mus­lim ap­par­el in the car.

A search was car­ried out in the sur­round­ing area and a male from Gold­en Lane was ar­rest­ed. An­oth­er male oc­cu­pant of Pump Mill lat­er sur­ren­dered to po­lice.

Lat­er in the day, a 13-year-old school­girl of Gold­en Lane went to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal with a from a gun­shot wound to the hand. She was treat­ed and is said to be un­der po­lice guard at hos­pi­tal. Her con­di­tion was de­scribed as sta­ble.

Of­fi­cers say, the dri­ver of the get­away car and the main sus­pect al­leged­ly in­volved in the rob­bery es­caped. They be­lieve he may have been shot. An am­ber alert was is­sued to all health fa­cil­i­ties to look out for any­one nurs­ing gun­shot wounds.

Mean­while, THA Chief Sec­re­tary and Sec­re­tary for Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion and En­er­gy Kelvin Charles in a press re­lease urged stu­dents to be vig­i­lant.

Charles con­firmed that two stu­dents were in the car that was in­ter­cept­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, fol­low­ing a rob­bery at the Low­lands Mall.

Charles said, he was deeply sad­dened by the in­ci­dent and even more con­cerned for the wel­fare of the stu­dents and their fam­i­lies.

He al­so con­firmed one of the stu­dents has since been flown to Trinidad for med­ical care and at­ten­tion.

He al­so urged stu­dents to be vig­i­lant about their sur­round­ings, as well as the friend­ships they form. “I re­al­ly want to en­cour­age the youth to be very cau­tious in these times. They are liv­ing at a time that calls for great re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. It is a time when their de­ci­sions can have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for their lives,” he said.

The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion and En­er­gy en­cour­aged all stu­dents to ad­here to the guide­lines and in­struc­tions of their teach­ers, prin­ci­pals and the poli­cies of their schools.

Charles said he was cur­rent­ly await­ing fur­ther de­tails sur­round­ing the in­ci­dent.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.