Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

A man who was be­lieved to have been in­volved in a rob­bery in Cou­va yes­ter­day morn­ing was shot dead by po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing.

Three oth­ers who were said to be the sus­pect’s ac­com­plices man­aged to es­cape and up to last night were still on the run from the po­lice.

The sus­pect has been iden­ti­fied as Zithari Newark, of Mary Street, Cou­va.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 3.30 am a team of of­fi­cers from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion re­spond­ed to the scene of a rob­bery when they saw four men near a sil­ver Nis­san mo­tor car. On spot­ting the of­fi­cers, the men al­leged­ly whipped out guns and opened fire on the po­lice, who re­turned fire.

Three of the men en­tered the ve­hi­cle and es­caped, while the fourth sus­pect (Newark) was found on the ground bleed­ing from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds. Po­lice said a firearm and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion were found near him.

Newark was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal where he suc­cumbed to the in­juries.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the where­abouts of the three oth­er sus­pects is asked to con­tact the po­lice at 999, 555, 800-TIPS or 482-GARY.