Derek Achong

Two bur­glary sus­pects were killed on Fri­day af­ter­noon dur­ing a shoot-out with po­lice fol­low­ing a break-in at a house in Ch­agua­nas. Around 3.30 pm, po­lice re­ceived a re­port of a break-in at a house at Dam Road, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas. Of­fi­cers led by Cpl Ken Ali went to the scene and saw five men car­ry­ing elec­tron­ic and house­hold items out of the house and in­to a wait­ing ve­hi­cle. The own­ers of the house were said to be abroad on va­ca­tion.

When the of­fi­cers con­front­ed the men, two of them be­gan shoot­ing at the po­lice who re­turned fire. Three sus­pects were shot in the ex­change of gun­fire, while the oth­er two es­caped on foot. The three sus­pects were tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where two were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival, while the oth­er, of Car­di­nal Cres­cent, Ed­in­burgh 500, was trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope. He was ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

He is ex­pect­ed to be charged with sev­er­al lar­ce­ny and shoot­ing of­fences af­ter he is dis­charged from hos­pi­tal. The dead men were lat­er iden­ti­fied as Daniel Al­fred and Nikon Robert­son. Both men were in their 20s and lived in cen­tral Trinidad. Hours lat­er the same of­fi­cers raid­ed a house in Mon­trose, Ch­agua­nas, where they re­cov­ered a large quan­ti­ty of stolen elec­tron­ics, cell­phones and jew­el­ry.

The 30-year-old oc­cu­pant of the house was de­tained. He is sus­pect­ed to be an ac­com­plice of the group of bur­glars who are be­lieved to be re­spon­si­ble for sev­er­al break-ins in the Ch­agua­nas area. Sev­er­al pre­vi­ous vic­tims vis­it­ed the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day where they iden­ti­fied the stolen items. Po­lice said the ar­rest of the two sus­pects who fled the scene is im­mi­nent, as their iden­ti­ties are known to po­lice. Se­nior Supt De­o­dath Doolarchan, Supt John­ny Abra­ham and In­sp Wayne Lawrence are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.