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Thursday, May 15, 2025

Off-du­ty cop star­tles two gun­men...

Bandit shot dead in barbershop robbery

by

20161007

An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer is now be­ing hailed as a hero by his col­leagues af­ter he shot and killed a ban­dit and is be­lieved to have wound­ed an­oth­er, fol­low­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery at a Diego Mar­tin bar­ber­shop yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 12.30 pm two men barged in­to Specs Cuts Bar­ber­shop along La Puer­ta Road, coralled the two bar­bers and five cus­tomers, in­clud­ing In­sp Ken­neth Mor­gan, in­to a back room and de­mand­ed tick­ets for an up­com­ing par­ty sched­uled to take place to­mor­row in Ch­aguara­mas.

Po­lice said one of the ban­dits snatched a gold chain off the neck of a pa­tron be­fore send­ing him to the back room.

While rum­mag­ing through the shop for cash and the 20-plus tick­ets for the Chi­na­town par­ty, each worth $400, Mor­gan, who is on va­ca­tion, came out of the back room and con­front­ed the gun­men.

Dur­ing a shootout, the ban­dit who snatched the gold chain was shot dead and slumped on the road­way out­side the bar­ber­shop with the stolen item still grasped in his hand. The oth­er ban­dit, be­lieved to have been in­jured, es­caped in a wait­ing car with some of the par­ty tick­ets, po­lice said.

Po­lice are seek­ing the pub­lic's as­sis­tance to cap­ture him.

Mor­gan was shot in the groin and four cus­tomers were shot.

A state­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice said, "A po­lice in­spec­tor on va­ca­tion leave re­mains hos­pi­talised suf­fer­ing from a gun­shot wound to the groin area af­ter hero­ical­ly foil­ing an armed rob­bery at a bar­ber shop." Po­lice de­scribed his med­ical con­di­tion as "se­ri­ous."

Has­san Ali, 35, who lives at La Puer­ta, was shot in the head and up to late last night was list­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. The bul­let went through his head, po­lice said.

An­to­nio Cred­lo was shot in one eye and shoul­der and is al­so ward­ed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. The oth­er in­jured men were iden­ti­fied as Johnathan Vin­cent, shot in the but­tocks, and Afzard Khan, who was shot in the low­er back, right arm and ab­domen. They were tak­en to the St James Med­ical Com­plex and lat­er trans­ferred to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Up to late last night po­lice had no iden­ti­fi­ca­tion for the dead ban­dit.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, In­sp Anand Rame­sar, said his as­so­ci­a­tion re­gards Mor­gan as a hero. He dis­missed claims that the sit­u­a­tion might have been avoid­ed had Mor­gan as­sessed it and wait­ed un­til the ban­dits had left.

"There are some arm­chair po­lice of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the pub­lic who like to crit­i­cise the po­lice for the ac­tions and in­ac­tions, but we are hail­ing Mor­gan as a hero. The time has come for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to en­sure that all po­lice of­fi­cers are armed whether on or off-du­ty. And to the crim­i­nals, we want to say we are fight­ing back, we are fight­ing fire with fire."

One of the bar­bers, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia Ltd un­der con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said the en­tire in­ci­dent hap­pened in a flash. He said the two men ap­peared as though they were cus­tomers and were buzzed-in through the se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem. As they en­tered the men pulled out guns and de­mand­ed tick­ets for Chi­na­town and or­dered every­one to a back room.

Mor­gan, who had on­ly min­utes be­fore en­tered, left the safe­ty of the back room and con­front­ed the men. He said dur­ing the shootout be­tween Mor­gan and the ban­dits, bul­lets from the ban­dits pen­e­trat­ed a wood­en door sep­a­rat­ing the two rooms.

Ali, who was clos­est to the door, was hit in the head while Cred­lo and oth­ers were al­so in­jured.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the scene yes­ter­day, a rel­a­tive of Ali said he is treat­ed "like a prince" in the fam­i­ly. The woman, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said Ali is the on­ly son and last child to his par­ents.


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