Sascha Wil­son

Sev­en­teen-year-old Khris­ton Coop­er is the third sus­pect killed by po­lice in Ma­yaro dur­ing an al­leged shoot-out.

Coop­er of Guayagua­yare, Ma­yaro, Za­ck­ery "Cori" Gilbert, 19 and An­tonie "Mat­ta" St Rose, 21, both of Ma­yaro, were shot dead on Sun­day night at an aban­doned beach­front house off Church Street, Ma­yaro.

A fourth sus­pect is still on the run. Ini­tial po­lice re­ports stat­ed that short­ly be­fore 9 pm, a 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 sum 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.

The sus­pects opened fire at the of­fi­cers and be­gan run­ning at the side of an aban­doned house at Church Road as they con­tin­ued fir­ing at the of­fi­cers.

The of­fi­cers re­turned fire hit­ting three of the men who fell to the ground. The po­lice re­cov­ered a re­volver with one live round and spent cas­ings. Gilbert's rel­a­tives, how­ev­er, are claim­ing that the po­lice used ex­ces­sive force. The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent.

For the year so far nine peo­ple have been killed by po­lice dur­ing five in­ci­dents.