RALPH BAN­WARIE

A se­cu­ri­ty guard was killed dur­ing a shootout with ban­dits at a bar in Ma­tu­ri­ta, Ari­ma, yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said Joel Punette, 55, a se­cu­ri­ty guard with Thor Se­cu­ri­ty, of En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, was shot dead by three ban­dits when he en­gaged them as they at­tempt­ed to rob a van which was de­liv­er­ing cig­a­rettes to a par­lour at King­dom Av­enue around 8.35 am.

Punette, a fa­ther of two, was hit in the head, chest and parts of his body and died on the spot.The ban­dits got away with the de­liv­ery ve­hi­cle and $200,000 worth of cig­a­rettes. Po­lice were un­able to say if any cash or how much was tak­en in the rob­bery.

Po­lice said while the van dri­ver was con­duct­ing the sales trans­ac­tion, three armed ban­dits ran to­wards the par­lour and one of them en­tered and an­nounced a hold-up. But Punette drew his gun and be­gan to fire at the ban­dit. How­ev­er, he was lat­er shot by the oth­er two ban­dits who joined their as­so­ciate. The ban­dits took Punette's gun and the keys for the de­liv­ery ve­hi­cle, which they lat­er drove off in.

An all-points bul­letin was sent out by the po­lice and the van was lat­er found aban­doned at Cave Road, Gua­napo, with­out its cig­a­rette car­go. Po­lice at­tached to the Task Force, CID, and Crime Pa­trol Unit went in search of the ban­dits but were un­suc­cess­ful.

At the scene yes­ter­day, Punette's wife, Lisa, was un­able to speak to the me­dia.

Vis­it­ing the scene were Supt Neville Sankar, In­sp Guyan, Sgt Thomas, PCs Thomas and Car­ring­ton and Ari­ma po­lice. They were lat­er joined by Homi­cide and CSI of­fi­cers. DMO Dr Ram­roop viewed the body and or­dered its re­moval to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, for an au­top­sy.

In­sp Guyan of Ari­ma CID is con­tin­u­ing in­quiries.

This is the sec­ond rob­bery in Ma­tu­ri­ta where a se­cu­ri­ty guard was killed by ban­dits in the past two months. On Sep­tem­ber 10 at the Can­tonese Su­per Store on the East­ern Main Road, Ma­tu­ri­ta, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Vi­jay Ma­haraj was shot dead by ban­dits while three oth­er peo­ple suf­fered gun­shot wounds.

Cpl Jeanville of Ari­ma CID is con­tin­u­ing in­quiries in­to the in­ci­dent.

In an­oth­er gun-re­lat­ed shoot­ing in the same com­mu­ni­ty half an hour lat­er, a man whose name was giv­en on­ly as Sean, of Tamana, was shot sev­er­al times about his body. He re­mained at Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, in crit­i­cal con­di­tion last night.

Po­lice said Sean was work­ing on a box drain at Moo­nan Dri­ve, Bye-Pass Road, Ma­tu­ri­ta, a short dis­tance away from where Punette was killed, when a gun­man ap­proached him and opened fire.