Ex­act­ly 15 days af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­turned to the scene of a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in which three young men were killed near the cor­ner of Cha­con Street and In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, on Ju­ly 2, the of­fi­cial di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble for car­ry­ing out the bal­lis­tics analy­sis has been sent on quar­an­tine leave.

Dis­clos­ing this yes­ter­day when he was con­tact­ed, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said this has led to a de­lay in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He said, “They had reached three-quar­ters of the way in do­ing the work, and then they went on quar­an­tine.”

The quar­an­tine pe­ri­od which be­gan last week is ex­pect­ed to come to an end this week.

Fabi­an Richards, 22, Isa­iah Roberts, 17 both of St Barb’s and Leonar­do Williams, 21, of Beetham Gar­dens, died af­ter they were shot by po­lice dur­ing an in­ci­dent around 3.20 am on Ju­ly 2.

The three were said to be re­turn­ing from a par­ty in Diego Mar­tin when they were al­leged­ly pur­sued and lat­er shot by po­lice.

Po­lice coun­tered that they re­turned fire on­ly af­ter the oc­cu­pants shot at them, a claim the dead men’s rel­a­tives have con­tin­ued to de­ny.

Au­top­sy re­sults for the three re­vealed they sus­tained gun­shot wounds to the back in­clud­ing the back of the head, the back of the neck, the but­tocks and arms.

The three sur­vivors, in­clud­ing a teenag­er who was al­so shot, were nev­er charged by of­fi­cers.

The deaths sparked fiery protests, lead­ing to res­i­dents from Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons block­ing the main ac­cess roads in­to and out of west Trinidad, as they de­mand­ed jus­tice.