A man was shot and killed by po­lice dur­ing an an­ti-crime op­er­a­tion in Cou­va last night, as Cen­tral Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to in­tel­li­gence on il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro this morn­ing con­firmed that of­fi­cers en­tered a home in the dis­trict where they were con­front­ed by an armed man.

“Re­spond­ing to the im­me­di­ate threat, of­fi­cers dis­charged their ser­vice-is­sued weapons, in­jur­ing the sus­pect in the process. De­spite ef­forts to se­cure med­ical at­ten­tion at the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty, the in­di­vid­ual lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries,” Gue­var­ro said.

A firearm was re­cov­ered at the scene. The in­ci­dent is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Gue­var­ro said the shoot­ing was one of sev­er­al law en­force­ment op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed across the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion overnight.

In an­oth­er case, of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a re­port of a shoot­ing near the Cou­va Fire Sta­tion. When they ar­rived, they found a woman with a gun­shot wound. She was tak­en to the Cou­va Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where she re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

“Pre­lim­i­nary find­ings re­vealed that the ini­tial re­port giv­en to the po­lice did not match with the ini­tial ob­ser­va­tions made by the po­lice,” he said. Of­fi­cers de­tained a male sus­pect and re­cov­ered a firearm with am­mu­ni­tion. That in­di­vid­ual is now as­sist­ing with in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Lat­er in the night, of­fi­cers ex­e­cut­ed a tar­get­ed op­er­a­tion in the En­ter­prise dis­trict, where they seized co­caine, mar­i­jua­na, and am­mu­ni­tion. Two peo­ple were ar­rest­ed.

“Col­lec­tive­ly, these events re­flect a chal­leng­ing op­er­a­tional land­scape that de­mands both vig­i­lance and pre­ci­sion,” the Com­mis­sion­er said.

He added that il­le­gal firearms con­tin­ue to pose the most se­ri­ous threat to pub­lic safe­ty, but said com­mu­ni­ty sup­port re­mains strong.

“The feed­back and in­for­ma­tion com­ing from the pub­lic has been over­whelm­ing, and I want to pub­licly thank you for show­ing us that you trust us to share your in­for­ma­tion with us. And as you can see, it is be­ing act­ed up­on. Part­ner­ship with the pub­lic is key.”