Jensen La Vende

Po­lice are still search­ing for a third man who they be­lieve was shot but es­caped fol­low­ing a shootout with po­lice in San­ta Cruz on Thurs­day.They are yet to iden­ti­fy the sec­ond man who was killed dur­ing the shootout. Mem­bers of the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force were on pa­trol along Sad­dle Road, San­ta Cruz, when they re­ceived a re­port that three men in a gold-coloured Toy­ota Corol­la were break­ing in­to homes near Fran­cis Street.

When po­lice ar­rived at the lo­ca­tion they saw the car which quick­ly sped off. Af­ter a chase, the oc­cu­pants of the car be­gan shoot­ing at the po­lice who re­turned fire.The car crashed near the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty pump­ing sta­tion close to Jag­gan Vil­lage.

Po­lice said the oc­cu­pants again fired at the po­lice who re­turned fire and fa­tal­ly shot Ab­ba Di­az, 25, of Black­ford Street, San­ta Cruz. The oth­er two oc­cu­pants were al­so shot. The uniden­ti­fied dead man was the dri­ver, po­lice said. The man who es­caped had pend­ing gun-re­lat­ed of­fences be­fore the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates Court, po­lice said.Two guns, a .38 re­volver and one .40 cal­i­bre Smith and Wes­son pis­tol, were re­cov­ered at the scene.