An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior of­fi­cers in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice say of­fi­cers will con­tin­ue to de­fend them­selves against any and all threats when con­front­ed by armed crim­i­nals.

The warn­ing came af­ter a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day, which left one man dead and his fe­male ac­com­plice in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice iden­ti­fied the man as Joshua Sama­roo.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers on pa­trol in the North East­ern Di­vi­sion (NED) were alert­ed to a high-speed chase which re­port­ed­ly be­gan in Mal­oney around 12.30 pm, and saw the sus­pects rac­ing west along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way.

As they joined their col­leagues to pur­sue the oc­cu­pants of a white Toy­ota Aqua, po­lice said the sus­pects opened fire on of­fi­cers, forc­ing them to re­turn fire as per the TTPS’s Use of Force Pol­i­cy.

The two were wound­ed, and as the dri­ver lost con­trol, the car land­ed in a shal­low drain at the cor­ner of Dook­iesingh Street and Bassie Street Ex­ten­sion, St Au­gus­tine.

The in­jured sus­pects were pulled from the car and tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where Sama­roo lat­er died.

The woman, 24, who was said to be from Bam­boo Set­tle­ment 1, Val­sayn, re­mained in crit­i­cal con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day evening.

The in­ci­dent has brought the num­ber of po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings so far for 2026 to four.

A se­nior of­fi­cer from the NED de­nied any no­tion that TTPS of­fi­cers were us­ing dead­ly force.

“I wouldn’t say there is a hit squad. We are per­form­ing our du­ties. This came over the wire­less set, and the po­lice have a du­ty to re­spond when there is a re­port, es­pe­cial­ly from the Com­mand Cen­tre,” he said.

Of­fi­cers con­firmed a firearm was re­cov­ered in the sus­pect’s car.

Mean­while, an el­der­ly woman liv­ing close by to where the shoot­ing oc­curred ad­mit­ted she was “fright­ened”. She said she quick­ly checked to make sure her grand­chil­dren were ac­count­ed for be­fore urg­ing them to stay in­side.

Two bare-backed teenagers, both aged 15, who were play­ing Grand Theft Au­to (GTA) on a gam­ing con­sole in the house op­po­site, re­marked that while they were sim­u­lat­ing ag­gres­sion to­wards law en­force­ment dur­ing their game­play, they were stunned to know that a sim­i­lar sce­nario was un­fold­ing in re­al­i­ty.

Hold­ing out his hand, which was still trem­bling an hour af­ter the shoot­ing, one of the teens re­count­ed, “We was scared be­cause we was play­ing GTA on the PlaySta­tion and then all we hear is siren, and then we hear ba-dang, and then shoot­ing.”

Point­ing to his cousin, he con­tin­ued, “He tell me duck, and we just lie down on the ground un­til the shoot­ing done.

“We leave every­thing and just lie down on the ground till it done.”

Ad­mit­ting it was not un­usu­al to hear gun­shots in the area, the boys com­mend­ed of­fi­cers for “do­ing their job and pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens.”

“We cyar vex with them, they do­ing their job to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty and it have some men who does get caught up in the wrong thing ... and that’s the price they had­da pay.”

Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty David West promised to re­spond to the in­ci­dent by to­day.