An ear­ly morn­ing at­tack by a cut­lass-wield­ing mob on two Va­len­cia friends has left a teenage stu­dent dead and her boyfriend ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion. How­ev­er, quick re­sponse by East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice of­fi­cers led to the ar­rests of two sus­pects short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent. The vic­tim was iden­ti­fied as Aman­da Pam­ponette, a 17-year-old Form Four stu­dent of Va­len­cia High School. She lived at Pe­ter Av­enue, Va­len­cia. Up to late yes­ter­day, her boyfriend Joel John, 23, of Ben­ny Trace, Va­len­cia, re­mained in hos­pi­tal re­ceiv­ing treat­ment for mul­ti­ple chop wounds about his body.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, short­ly af­ter mid­night on Thurs­day, Pam­ponette and John were stand­ing near John's home when they were ap­proached by four men armed with cut­lass­es. Po­lice said the group of men sur­round­ed the friends and af­ter a brief con­ver­sa­tion be­gan to chop them about their bod­ies. Po­lice said the men were well known to Pam­ponette and John and be­lieve the at­tack might have stemmed from an al­ter­ca­tion be­tween the par­ties ear­li­er in the day. The group of at­tack­ers re­port­ed­ly fled the scene af­ter res­i­dents start­ed to re­spond on hear­ing the screams of the friends. Po­lice said res­i­dents rushed Pam­ponette and John to the San­gre Grande Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal where Pam­ponette was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. Po­lice said be­fore un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery, a se­mi-con­cious John was able to name and iden­ti­fy the at­tack­ers to po­lice. A team of of­fi­cers from the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force led by Cpl Ju­nior Bernand act­ing on the in­for­ma­tion re­ceived launched an im­me­di­ate man­hunt for the sus­pects through­out the Va­len­cia Dis­trict. The first sus­pect was held at around 8 am while at his San Pe­dro Road, Va­len­cia home. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the 26-year-old man was in the process of pack­ing a knap­sack when he was ar­rest­ed and was be­lieved to be in the process of flee­ing in­to the near­by Va­len­cia For­est.

Mean­while, the sec­ond sus­pect was held at 1 pm by po­lice in front of the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post while at­tempt­ing to board a maxi-taxi en­route to Port-of-Spain. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the 24-year-old man said that he was at­tempt­ing to reach Port-of-Spain in an ef­fort to board the fer­ry to To­ba­go to evade po­lice. Up to late yes­ter­day se­nior of­fi­cers close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed that the ar­rest of the two oth­er sus­pects was im­mi­nent as their iden­ti­ties were known to po­lice. How­ev­er, of­fi­cers said that the weapons that were used in the at­tack were still to be re­cov­ered by de­tec­tives. Both sus­pects that were in po­lice cus­tody are be­ing de­tained at the Va­len­cia po­lice post. Up to late yes­ter­day the na­tion's mur­der toll stood at 40. Al­so in­volved in the ex­er­cise was Sgt Ray­mond Austin, Cpl Al­lan Khan, PC Ra­jku­mar and WPC John­son, all who are at­tached to the Va­len­cia po­lice sta­tion.