Cori Baynes

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to the death of a Mara­bel­la man who was killed dur­ing a shoot-out with po­lice ear­ly yes­ter­day. Dead is Nicholas Bernard Fri­day, 21, alias "Slim," who lived at Fifth Street, Bat­too Av­enue, Mara­bel­la. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 2.30 am yes­ter­day, Dave Seon, own­er of Seon's bar at Roy­al Road, San Fer­nan­do, closed his es­tab­lish­ment, checked his ve­hi­cles and went to his apart­ment at Moody Stew­art Street, a short dis­tance away.

While he was open­ing his door, two men armed with guns came up be­hind him, an­nounced a rob­bery and taped his mouth and eyes shut. His girl­friend Pen­ne­lope Nurse, 41, and five-year-old daugh­ter Faith were al­so bound and tak­en to an­oth­er room. How­ev­er, po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rived at the scene while the rob­bery was in progress and a shoot-out en­sued as the ban­dits at­tempt­ed to es­cape on foot.

Af­ter a short chase, Fri­day, who was wound­ed in the ex­change, col­lapsed at Navet Road and was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries. The oth­er man es­caped. Speak­ing af­ter­ward, Seon said he did not know who called the po­lice, but he was thank­ful for their swift re­sponse. At Fri­day's home, peo­ple re­fused to speak with mem­bers of the me­dia. "His fa­ther is a po­lice...He will come in three days time, and when he comes we will talk," said one man.