RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

A man­hunt has been launched for a sus­pect who re­port­ed­ly shot at po­lice of­fi­cers on ex­er­cise yes­ter­day, in the Mara­cas / St Joseph area.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that po­lice of­fi­cers were fired up­on on two oc­ca­sions whilst on an en­quiry op­er­a­tion in the Mara­cas/St Joseph area on Wednes­day 20 Jan­u­ary 2021; how­ev­er, the sus­pect man­aged to es­cape.

Po­lice be­lieve the shoot­er is a 26-year-old man from San­ta Ri­ta Road, Llu­en­go Vil­lage, Mara­cas / St Joseph.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 10:25 am, two of­fi­cers as­signed to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Spe­cial Branch were on pa­trol and en­quiries, when they en­coun­tered the man in the area of the bas­ket­ball court at Llu­en­go Vil­lage, Mara­cas / St Joseph.

The man is said to be of dark com­plex­ion, ap­prox­i­mate­ly five feet six inch­es tall, and sport­ing a beard.  At the time, he was clad in a white t-shirt, three-quar­ter black jeans and had a bag strapped across the shoul­der.

On see­ing the po­lice of­fi­cers, the man re­port­ed­ly point­ed a firearm at them and opened fire. The of­fi­cers, in keep­ing with the Po­lice Ser­vice Use of Force Pol­i­cy, drew their ser­vice is­sued firearms and re­turned fire, dis­charg­ing three rounds in the di­rec­tion of the sus­pect. 

The man ran off and the of­fi­cers gave chase.  Re­ports are the sus­pect opened fire at the of­fi­cers for a sec­ond time.  The of­fi­cers again re­turned fire, dis­charg­ing sev­en rounds in the di­rec­tion of the sus­pect; how­ev­er, he man­aged to es­cape in­to a forest­ed area.

Checks were made for the sus­pect in the im­me­di­ate vicin­i­ty but he was not seen.

Crime scene per­son­nel processed the scene and re­cov­ered three hol­low, brass-coloured cylin­dri­cal ob­jects re­sem­bling that of 9 mm shell cas­ings.

Of­fi­cers re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that the sus­pect is a man from the area.

A search war­rant sub­se­quent­ly was ob­tained and ex­e­cut­ed at the sus­pect’s home.  How­ev­er, he was not at home and noth­ing il­le­gal was found.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.