To­ba­go po­lice are on the man­hunt for a male sus­pect who es­caped fol­low­ing a high-speed chase in the vil­lage of Buc­coo on Tues­day evening.

The man, who lives in the area, is be­lieved to have had an il­le­gal firearm.

Res­i­dents scam­pered for their lives as of­fi­cers in three po­lice ve­hi­cles fired shots at the sus­pect as they pur­sued his blue Nis­san B13 which hit a curb wall and an­oth­er car as he sped through the vil­lage's streets.

One res­i­dent who pre­ferred to re­main uniden­ti­fied said vil­lagers were sit­ting by the wa­ter­front when they heard the sirens and saw po­lice pur­su­ing the sus­pect.

"We saw him speed­ing and re­al­ized the po­lice were chas­ing af­ter him. We had to run for cov­er be­cause they were dri­ving at top speed and we heard shots ring out.”

She said the man es­caped in a forest­ed area.

“Well af­ter he mashed up the wall and swing in by the bar and bounce the next car he jumped out of the car and ran down in some bush­es. By the time the of­fi­cers re­al­ly try to chase af­ter him he was al­ready gone. The po­lice re­mained in the area for a while af­ter, they were go­ing through all side streets, dri­ving around.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the sus­pect's ve­hi­cle was sub­se­quent­ly hauled away by a wreck­er.

Head of Po­lice, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion Ains­ley Gar­rick con­firmed the in­ci­dent.

He told Guardian Me­dia po­lice re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that the male sus­pect had an il­le­gal gun.

"When the sus­pect saw the po­lice ap­proach­ing he took flight. The of­fi­cers pur­sued him in­to the Buc­coo area where he sub­se­quent­ly es­caped on foot. We searched the area but the sus­pect re­mains at large,” Gar­rick said.