Derek Achong

A 37-year-old sus­pect­ed fraud­ster was wound­ed while at­tempt­ing to flee from po­lice in El Do­ra­do, Tu­na­puna, yes­ter­day.The sus­pect, who po­lice said had no fixed place of abode, was shot in his leg and re­mained ward­ed un­der po­lice guard at hos­pi­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, short­ly af­ter 2.30 pm of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion CID led by In­sp Mark Ma­haraj re­ceived a re­port that the sus­pect, who had been want­ed by po­lice for sev­er­al months, was lim­ing at Cap­tain's Bar at the cor­ner of the East­ern Main Road and St Ce­celia Road, El Do­ra­do.When the of­fi­cers ar­rived on the scene they con­front­ed the sus­pect, who man­aged to break free and dash to­wards his white Nis­san Wingroad, which was parked near by.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the sus­pect drove east along the Main Road and was fol­lowed by the of­fi­cers. The of­fi­cers fired sev­er­al warn­ing shots at the car in a bid to get the dri­ver to sur­ren­der. The sus­pect was even­tu­al­ly shot in the leg and crashed in­to the curb at Mc Sev­eney Street. He got out and at­tempt­ed to es­cape but was caught.When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the bar yes­ter­day, pa­trons and staff all claimed they did not no­tice the in­ci­dent.

"We was lim­ing and hear the gun­shots. It hap­pen so fast we bare­ly see any­thing," one pa­tron, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said.Po­lice said the sus­pect, who is want­ed for sev­er­al of­fences at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions across Trinidad, on­ly suf­fered a "flesh wound" and was ex­pect­ed to be dis­charged soon. Once dis­charged the sus­pect will be hand­ed over to de­tec­tives from the Fraud Squad.

In an un­re­lat­ed mat­ter, two men are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in the Ch­agua­nas Mag­is­trates' Court to­day charged with the rob­bery of a 94-year-old can­cer pa­tient and his 65-year-old daugh­ter.Po­lice said short­ly af­ter 3 pm, the two sus­pects, armed with knives, broke in­to the fam­i­ly's home and be­gan threat­en­ing the two el­der­ly rel­a­tives, who op­er­ate a small par­lour which is an­nexed to their house at Jankie Trace, Las Lo­mas Num­ber 2.

When the rel­a­tives re­fused to sur­ren­der their valu­ables, the sus­pects grabbed the man's daugh­ter and be­gan chok­ing her with a met­al bar as he watched help­less­ly. The rel­a­tives even­tu­al­ly hand­ed over $800 and a quan­ti­ty of cig­a­rettes to the sus­pects, which prompt­ed them to leave.

Po­lice said neigh­bours con­tact­ed them af­ter they heard the rel­a­tives' screams for help and saw the sus­pects leav­ing their premis­es. A group of of­fi­cers from the Las Lo­mas Po­lice Sta­tion, led by Sgt Nash, were on pa­trol in the com­mu­ni­ty and re­spond­ed to the call. The sus­pects were chased to a near­by con­struc­tion site where they sur­ren­dered to the of­fi­cers