Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A 36-year-old St Ann’s man was shot and killed by gun­men dressed in po­lice tac­ti­cal gear and wear­ing what ap­peared to be bul­let­proof vests yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said Der­rick Bou­caud left his home and was dri­ving his black Hyundai car on Symond Road when a white Ford Fo­cus stopped in front of his ve­hi­cle, cut­ting him off near Fondes Aman­des Road.

Two masked men wear­ing tac­ti­cal fa­tigues and bul­let­proof vests got out of the car and shot Bou­caud sev­er­al times be­fore get­ting back in­to their car and dri­ving off.

Of­fi­cers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) were on pa­trol at the time and vis­it­ed the scene, where they found Bou­caud’s body.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors found 61 spent 5.56 shells. Of­fi­cers of the Re­gion One Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Bou­caud is the sec­ond St Ann’s man to be killed by gun­men wear­ing cloth­ing close­ly re­sem­bling of­fi­cial po­lice-is­sued ap­par­el in a month.

On Au­gust 20, 25-year-old welder Ja­mal Williams was al­so shot and killed on Symond Val­ley Road by gun­men wear­ing dark-coloured cloth­ing, one of whom wore a bul­let­proof vest bear­ing the word ‘Po­lice’.

A Diego Mar­tin man al­so re­cent­ly re­port­ed that he was robbed at his home by men wear­ing sim­i­lar ap­par­el, who iden­ti­fied them­selves as po­lice of­fi­cers.

The preva­lence of crim­i­nals wear­ing po­lice gear and de­ceiv­ing vic­tims to stage at­tacks and rob­beries re­mained a chal­lenge even af­ter a change in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice uni­form pol­i­cy, which sought to quell such in­ci­dents by hav­ing of­fi­cers re­turn to tra­di­tion­al grey and char­coal uni­forms.