An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice con­sta­ble Quian­na Ma­habir was list­ed as sta­ble at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, last night, hours af­ter she was am­bushed and shot by a gun­man sec­onds af­ter ar­riv­ing at home from an as­sign­ment with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Band.

Ma­habir, 30, of Hy­draulic Road, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, was shot sev­er­al times at 1.35 am, mo­ments af­ter she ar­rived from the air­port.

Ma­habir, along with a fe­male friend, were am­bushed in what was be­lieved to be an at­tempt­ed rob­bery by two armed men. She was shot at least twice dur­ing the in­ci­dent out­side her apart­ment along the qui­et street.

She was col­lect­ed at the air­port by her friend and had just ar­rived home when they were ap­proached by the armed men, who at­tempt­ed to en­ter their ve­hi­cle and then fired shots at the car af­ter they were un­suc­cess­ful.

The of­fi­cer has been a drum­mer in the Po­lice Band for the past three years.

She had re­turned to Trinidad at mid­night with 16 oth­er fe­male band mem­bers fol­low­ing a 12-day tour of the Ba­hamas and New Jer­sey.

The at­tack has again prompt­ed T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, to call on the Ju­di­cia­ry to en­sure that gun-tot­ing ban­dits face stiffer penal­ties for their acts.

Speak­ing with re­porters min­utes af­ter meet­ing rel­a­tives of Ma­habir at the EWM­SC Ac­ci­dent & Emer­gency De­part­ment (A&E), Dick­son said, “She is a fight­er.”

He said de­spite her in­juries, Ma­habir’s will to live was strong and she was in a sta­ble con­di­tion. He said Ma­habir had a bul­let lodged in her stom­ach while a sec­ond had en­tered the right side of her head and ex­it­ed through her mouth.

“As it is right now, she is un­der heavy se­da­tion,” he said, al­though ad­mit­ting he had not been able to see her as on­ly fam­i­ly were al­lowed that priv­i­lege at the time.

Even as Dick­son was speak­ing, Ma­habir’s rel­a­tives main­tained a steady pres­ence at her bed­side pray­ing for her safe re­cov­ery.

Com­fort­ed by friends and co-work­ers of Ma­habir as they kept a care­ful vig­il in the hos­pi­tal’s cor­ri­dor, one woman would on­ly say, “All we want is for her to walk out of here.”

Dick­son ex­pressed con­fi­dence that based on the CCTV footage ob­tained from sev­er­al points along the street, of­fi­cials would soon, “make a big dent in this in­ves­ti­ga­tion in very short or­der.”

“We ought not to leave any­thing un­done be­cause it ap­pears al­most on a dai­ly ba­sis. Apart from mem­bers of the pub­lic be­ing at­tacked and of­fi­cers try­ing their best to bring per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice, we are see­ing where the of­fi­cers are be­ing at­tacked.”

He added, “That is not a good sign. It is not the best for a democ­ra­cy.”

Not­ing Ma­habir was the third po­lice of­fi­cer to be shot in less than two weeks, Dick­son said, “It is nev­er a good day to see law en­force­ment in this kind of predica­ment.”

The two pre­vi­ous shoot­ings on Oc­to­ber 14 at San Juan and on Oc­to­ber 20 at Ari­ma, claimed the lives of Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cer Jerome Lee Bleas­dell and PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son re­spec­tive­ly.

Bleas­dell, 32, of La Canoa Road, Low­er San­ta Cruz, had been on sus­pen­sion when he was killed dur­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing along the East­ern Main Road as he left a su­per­mar­ket where he was per­form­ing se­cu­ri­ty du­ties.

In the sec­ond in­ci­dent days lat­er (Oc­to­ber 20), PC Shel­don Pe­ter­son, 54, who had al­so been on sus­pen­sion from the TTPS since 2014, was killed when he at­tempt­ed to fend off three ban­dits who went to rob the Awe­some Food and Drinks Su­per­mar­ket along Olton Road, Ari­ma, where he was work­ing as a se­cu­ri­ty guard.

Con­firm­ing they had of­fered a $20,000 re­ward for any in­for­ma­tion that could help solve Pe­ter­son’s mur­der in par­tic­u­lar, as he had been a mem­ber of the TTPSS­WA, Dick­son said oth­er en­ti­ties can up the ante so they get peo­ple com­ing for­ward with in­for­ma­tion “so we can call those to ac­count in short or­der.”

Dick­son ap­pealed to the pub­lic to work with the po­lice and on the ju­di­cia­ry to do their part.

“Gun-tot­ing ban­dits are hav­ing it too easy in this coun­try of ours. They are go­ing through the re­volv­ing door as if it’s no one’s busi­ness and they are glo­ri­fy­ing what they are do­ing to the younger, more im­pres­sion­able minds and that can­not be healthy in a so­ci­ety like ours with just 1.4 mil­lion peo­ple.”

He added, “We need to stop point­ing fin­gers be­cause all of us have a part to play in try­ing to solve this crime pan­dem­ic we are in at this time.”

As part of the TTPSS­WA’s thrust to pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to the fam­i­lies of fall­en of­fi­cers, Dick­son said, “We have just put in place a sys­tem where if any of­fi­cer dies present­ly for what­ev­er rea­son, they would be en­ti­tled to at least $50,000.”

He stressed, “It can­not re­place the love of a lost one but it can at least fill a void in the in­ter­im.”

He con­clud­ed, “If T&T re­al­ly wants to see a dif­fer­ence in what is hap­pen­ing here, the con­ver­sa­tion needs to be dif­fer­ent.”

Mean­while, TTPS Band di­rec­tor, Supt Wayne Guer­ra, said Ma­habir’s fel­low mu­si­cians were deeply af­fect­ed by the shoot­ing, as the all-fe­male con­tin­gent had re­turned home in a cel­e­bra­to­ry mood fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion of the tour.

The band re­ceived rave re­views from au­di­ences in the Ba­hamas and New Jer­sey, where they al­so re­ceived a procla­ma­tion at the Sun­shine Awards.

The team left T&T on Oc­to­ber 9 and spent sev­en days in the Ba­hamas, be­fore head­ing to the US. He said as news of the in­ci­dent spread yes­ter­day, pan­icked of­fi­cers ex­pressed grave con­cern and turned the tour “ex­treme­ly sour.”

Res­i­dents liv­ing near Ma­habir’s apart­ment, who re­port­ed hear­ing the gun­shots yes­ter­day morn­ing, said they were shocked and fright­ened at once.

One man, who has been liv­ing in the area for over 50 years, said he heard a sin­gle shot and then the loud blar­ing of the horn and a woman scream­ing, “Call the am­bu­lance.”

He said the area is usu­al­ly qui­et and was not known to be a hub for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who al­so con­firmed hear­ing the gun­shot, said his 16-year-old daugh­ter was too trau­ma­tised to at­tend school yes­ter­day. He said the crime sit­u­a­tion had forced them to build high­er walls, in­stall steel elec­tron­ic gates and put up CCTV cam­eras in a bid to stay safe, but it was prov­ing to be chal­leng­ing as the crim­i­nals were find­ing a way around it, as was ev­i­dent by Ma­habir’s shoot­ing.

CoP sad­dened by at­tack

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher con­demned the at­tack and said she stood with the of­fi­cer’s fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues.

“I am deeply sad­dened and dis­turbed by the trag­ic at­tack on one of our off-du­ty fe­male po­lice of­fi­cers. Such cru­el­ty is jar­ring and is a re­minder of the dan­gers our of­fi­cers face both on and off du­ty. This comes on the heels of re­cent sep­a­rate in­ci­dents where two oth­er off-du­ty of­fi­cers were fa­tal­ly shot,” the CoP said.

“The avail­abil­i­ty of firearms in our com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ues to fu­el gun vi­o­lence, mur­ders and oth­er se­ri­ous crimes. Ac­cess to these lethal weapons has re­gret­tably fos­tered a cul­ture of self-in­ter­est, bru­tal­i­ty and lack of re­spect for hu­man life and prop­er­ty.

“We know the task may seem un­sur­mount­able; how­ev­er, we whole­heart­ed­ly ac­cept our role to pro­tect and serve, there­fore, we will re­main un­wa­ver­ing in our re­solve to tack­le gun vi­o­lence and re­move il­le­gal firearms from our com­mu­ni­ties.”

She ap­pealed to any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the in­ci­dents to con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion or call 555, 999, or CRIME STOP­PERS at 800-TIPS.