KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has is­sued a strong warn­ing to vi­o­lent home in­vaders, stat­ing that of­fi­cers will “de­fend them­selves and the cit­i­zens” fol­low­ing a po­lice op­er­a­tion in Mara­bel­la that end­ed with one sus­pect be­ing fa­tal­ly shot and two oth­ers ar­rest­ed.

The con­fronta­tion came hours af­ter two sep­a­rate home in­va­sions in Gas­par­il­lo on Wednes­day, as law en­force­ment in­ten­si­fied ef­forts to dis­man­tle or­gan­ised rob­bery gangs op­er­at­ing in South and Cen­tral Trinidad.

Po­lice said the fa­tal shoot­ing oc­curred af­ter of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed a sus­pect­ed rob­bery crew at Union Park East, Mara­bel­la, where in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ed an­oth­er home in­va­sion was be­ing planned.

The op­er­a­tion came less than a week af­ter of­fi­cers dis­man­tled the so-called “Tall Boots Crew” in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, part of a broad­er crack­down on or­gan­ised home in­va­sion syn­di­cates.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro de­fend­ed the po­lice re­sponse and de­scribed the re­cent at­tacks as cal­cu­lat­ed and dan­ger­ous.

“Yes­ter­day’s at­tack in Ben Lomond Vil­lage, Williamsville, was cow­ard­ly and cal­cu­lat­ed, but our of­fi­cers move with pre­ci­sion and with­in hours, the sus­pects who were re­spon­si­ble were in­ter­cept­ed,” he said.

“When armed crim­i­nals choose to point guns at a po­lice of­fi­cer, they alone de­ter­mine the out­come. The mes­sage is sim­ple: if you en­gage in vi­o­lence, my of­fi­cers will de­fend them­selves and the cit­i­zens of our beloved coun­try.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), of­fi­cers launched in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing a home in­va­sion ear­li­er on Wednes­day in Ben Lomond Vil­lage, Williamsville, where a 67-year-old woman was tar­get­ed.

At ap­prox­i­mate­ly 9.25 pm, of­fi­cers from the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, Emer­gency Re­sponse and Tac­ti­cal Unit, Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion and San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion act­ed on in­for­ma­tion that armed sus­pects were prepar­ing an­oth­er rob­bery in Mara­bel­la.

On ar­rival, of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly en­coun­tered about eight men in a yard. The sus­pects at­tempt­ed to flee in­to near­by bush­es, but dur­ing the pur­suit, two men al­leged­ly point­ed firearms at of­fi­cers, re­sult­ing in an armed con­fronta­tion. One sus­pect was fa­tal­ly shot.

Po­lice re­cov­ered a re­volver loaded with six rounds of .38 am­mu­ni­tion at the scene.

Two ad­di­tion­al sus­pects were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the ex­er­cise. Po­lice said a 24-year-old man of Quar­ry Road, Gas­par­il­lo, was found with a re­volver and six rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, while a 20-year-old man of Union Park East, Mara­bel­la, was al­leged­ly found with a cell­phone be­lieved to have been stolen dur­ing the ear­li­er Gas­par­il­lo home in­va­sion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the ar­rests were the re­sult of co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion across mul­ti­ple units and rapid in­tel­li­gence shar­ing.

Ear­li­er on Wednes­day, a pen­sion­er and an­oth­er vic­tim were at­tacked around 10.08 am at their home in Ben Lomond Vil­lage when four masked men pos­ing as cus­tomers en­tered the prop­er­ty. Po­lice said the sus­pects, dressed in cov­er­alls and masks and armed with firearms, forced en­try, as­sault­ed the vic­tims and stole cash, jew­ellery and a cell­phone be­fore es­cap­ing in a grey Toy­ota Aqua fit­ted with fake reg­is­tra­tion plates.

Hours be­fore that in­ci­dent, an­oth­er fam­i­ly was ter­rorised dur­ing a sep­a­rate home in­va­sion on Re­form Road, Gas­par­il­lo, around 3.30 am.

Po­lice said six peo­ple were tied up and robbed af­ter four masked gun­men stormed a two-storey house while the oc­cu­pants were asleep. The sus­pects re­port­ed­ly forced open bed­room doors, an­nounced a rob­bery, and stole cash, cell­phones, jew­ellery, land­scap­ing equip­ment and a white Nis­san AD Wag­on be­fore es­cap­ing in the stolen ve­hi­cle.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors PC Nan­doo and WPC Ram­jat­tan-De­boulet processed the var­i­ous scenes, but no work­able fin­ger­prints were re­cov­ered. The Cy­ber­crime Unit has since been en­gaged as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.