Sascha Wil­son

The rob­bery of a KFC de­liv­ery dri­ver on Sun­day night end­ed in the deaths of three of four sus­pects in a shoot out with the po­lice in Ma­yaro on Sun­day night. This in­ci­dent took the num­ber of peo­ple killed by po­lice for the year to nine.

One of the dead sus­pects had not been iden­ti­fied up to late yes­ter­day. The oth­er two were iden­ti­fied as 19-year-old Za­ck­ery “Cori” Gilbert and An­to­nio “Mat­ta” St Rose, both of Ma­yaro.

A rel­a­tive of one of the men claimed the po­lice used ex­ces­sive force.

Ini­tial po­lice re­ports stat­ed that short­ly be­fore 9 pm, the 41-year-old KFC de­liv­ery dri­ver went to Mis­chi­er Road to drop off an or­der. When he got there he was ap­proached by a man who claimed to be the cus­tomer.

Three oth­er men armed with guns, cut­lass­es and knives then ap­proached and an­nounced a rob­bery. They robbed him of an undis­closed amount of cash, a cell­phone and the KFC meal. The four sus­pects then ran off to­wards the beach.

The po­lice re­spond­ed and took up strate­gic po­si­tions at the scene. Two of the of­fi­cers walked along the beach front and were con­front­ed by the sus­pects who opened fire at the of­fi­cers and be­gan run­ning to the side of an aban­doned beach house.

The of­fi­cers re­turned fire hit­ting three of the men who fell to the ground. The fourth sus­pect climbed over a wall and es­caped.

The sus­pects died at the scene. Au­top­sies will be done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James.

A re­volver with one live round and spent cas­ings was re­cov­ered at the scene.

How­ev­er, Gilbert’s cousin, Michelle Mo­hammed, is chal­leng­ing the po­lice ac­count of what took place. She said rel­a­tives went to the scene and spoke with an eye­wit­ness who claimed the men were un­armed when the po­lice shot them.

“She said the po­lice jam them to the wall and them (po­lice) had them in their hands. What we up­set about is that they could ah hold them and car­ry them in cus­tody. They did not have to shoot down the chil­dren like dogs. This shock we right now,” she said.

Mo­hammed said Gilbert grad­u­at­ed from Ma­yaro Sec­ondary School last year and want­ed to be­come a sol­dier. He had been raised by his grand­moth­er since he was six-years-old fol­low­ing the death of his moth­er. She said he did not have a crim­i­nal record and as far as she knew was not in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“I feel he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cori nev­er rob no­body,” she said.

A rel­a­tive of St Rose, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, ad­mit­ted that he had a con­vic­tion for rob­bery and had re­cent­ly been re­leased from prison af­ter serv­ing a three-year term.

“To be hon­est at home you will see a child, he will not even mash an ants, he would not even an­swer you back but when he step out of the box is a dif­fer­ent per­son out­side there. You be­come a gang­ster, an out­law.

“I don’t know if it is some­thing he was try­ing to prove to his friends. I can’t even blame any­body to say he fol­low friends be­cause he is a big man, so the choic­es you make you have to live with. I did not want this to hap­pen, I did not want it to end this way but he make a choice,” she said.

She said St Rose’s par­ents died when he was young and he was em­ployed as a jan­i­tor at a guest house.

How­ev­er, a friend who al­so re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said St Rose “give up on life since his par­ents died.” He said St Rose was at a wake on Sun­day night and then went to Gilbert’s home.

“We hear the loud gun­shots but we did not ex­pect was them,” he said.

As far as he knew Gilbert was not in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“Cori grand­moth­er al­ways use to speak to him about late nights and com­ing in and friends. The grand­moth­er al­ways there with him but you know teenagers these days they does hear who they want to hear,” he said.

Res­i­dents ex­pressed shock at the in­ci­dent but said they were pleased at the po­lice re­sponse.

“The crime sit­u­a­tion re­al ter­ri­ble right now and with these youth and them not go­ing out and work and just look­ing to rob peo­ple it re­al sad,” said fruit ven­dor Joy Paras­ram.

“Be­fore you could walk the street any­time, any hour, noth­ing, now it have time dur­ing the day you can’t walk be­cause it not safe.”

Paras­ram called for more po­lice pa­trols in Ma­yaro and en­vi­rons.

Fish ven­dor Michael “Lag­gar” Ma­haraj said he does not feel safe ply­ing his trade.

“Just the oth­er day it have a fast ser­vice there 4 o’clock in the morn­ing they rob peo­ple there and then any­where you go is prob­lems,” he said.

Ma­haraj de­scribed the po­lice re­sponse to the rob­bery as “top of the line” but said the prob­lem is that af­ter of­fend­ers are ar­rest­ed and tak­en be­fore the courts they get bail.

“The po­lice work­ing in vain. That sad. I feel sor­ry for the po­lice. God bless the po­lice,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (ACP) and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice there were five in­ci­dents in which nine peo­ple were killed this month. PCA da­ta shows that be­tween Oc­to­ber 2021 and last Sep­tem­ber there were 31 in­ci­dents of fa­tal shoot­ings with 39 fa­tal­i­ties.