Shane Su­perville 

Po­lice are search­ing for a ban­dit be­lieved to be wound­ed, while a 28-year-old man re­mains in cus­tody fol­low­ing a shootout with of­fi­cers in Ari­ma on Mon­day night.

The in­ci­dent be­gan around 10.50 pm, when two men stole a woman’s white Hon­da City from the car park of KFC in Val­sayn. The woman re­port­ed­ly strug­gled with one of the ban­dits but fell and hit her face on the pas­sen­ger-side door as they drove off.

Of­fi­cers is­sued an All Points Bul­letin (APB) with a de­scrip­tion of the ve­hi­cle.

About 30 min­utes lat­er, of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol (ERP) spot­ted the car head­ing east along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, near the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), and gave chase.

The ban­dits al­leged­ly fired at po­lice and tried to es­cape, turn­ing on­to Tumpuna Road North be­fore stop­ping and flee­ing the ve­hi­cle. They re­port­ed­ly shot at the po­lice again, prompt­ing of­fi­cers to re­turn fire.

The sus­pects man­aged to es­cape, but po­lice be­lieve one of them may have been wound­ed dur­ing the ex­change.

Short­ly af­ter the shoot­ing, of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed a San­ta Rosa man, be­lieved to be one of the ban­dits, on Pin­to Road in Ari­ma. They took him to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion for ques­tion­ing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered eight spent 9 mm shells along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way and one spent shell on Tumpuna Road North.

Po­lice towed the stolen ve­hi­cle to the Mal­oney Po­lice Sta­tion for fur­ther analy­sis.