Jensen La Vende

A 53-year-old bar own­er is in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing shot four times dur­ing a rob­bery at­tempt yes­ter­day.Po­lice said around 12.30 am Mar­tin Alex­is was clos­ing his bar, Kaiso Cor­ner, along the SS Erin Road, San­ta Flo­ra, when two masked gun­men ran up to him.

It is be­lieved he fought with the gun­men af­ter they tried to rob him and he was shot in the ab­domen. The men ran off along the road with­out get­ting any­thing.Res­i­dents con­tact­ed the San­ta Flo­ra po­lice who re­spond­ed, along with an am­bu­lance, and Alex­is was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where he was ward­ed at the In­ten­sive Care Unit last night.

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, Fyz­abad po­lice seized a 9mm pis­tol and nine rounds of am­mu­ni­tion from a man sus­pect­ed of a shoot­ing in the area. They said the man was found walk­ing along a road and was tak­en to his home where a search was car­ried out and the loaded gun was found.He is ex­pect­ed to be charged with shoot­ing with in­tent.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force yes­ter­day seized two guns–a Chi­nese Nor­in­co SKS ri­fle and a .38 re­volver–and ar­rest­ed a man who was in pos­ses­sion of a large sum of mon­ey with no ex­pla­na­tion about how he ac­quired it.

Po­lice said dur­ing an ex­er­cise on Tues­day, led by Sgt Tay­lor and in­clud­ing Cpls Smalls, Williams and Con­sta­bles Dass and Wal­lace, they went to Chan­doo Lane, El So­cor­ro, San Juan, where they held the man. Po­lice said the man, who is known to be in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty, was held with US$941 and TT $94,269.

The of­fi­cers then went to John­ny King Road, Aranguez, near Ram­ba­ju Trace, where they found an SKS rif­fle along with one mag­a­zine con­tain­ing 22 rounds of 7.62 am­mu­ni­tion.Dur­ing an­oth­er ex­er­cise yes­ter­day, the of­fi­cers seized a .38 re­volver. Po­lice said the gun was found in an emp­ty lot at Sec­ond Cale­do­nia, Mor­vant.

No one was ar­rest­ed for the guns.

–Kevon Felmine,Jensen La Vende