The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is warn­ing of height­ened threats to law en­force­ment per­son­nel, fol­low­ing the fa­tal shoot­ing of two kid­nap­ping sus­pects dur­ing co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tions that led to the res­cue of kid­nap vic­tim Jankie Satie Karim.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­firmed that the TTPS car­ried out a se­ries of in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions be­tween the night of Ju­ly 21 and the ear­ly hours of Ju­ly 22.

These ef­forts cul­mi­nat­ed in the safe re­cov­ery of 44-year-old Karim, who had been ab­duct­ed on Ju­ly 13 and held cap­tive for eight days.

Karim was res­cued from a house in Ram­panal­gas, off the To­co Main Road. Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion, a male sus­pect who held her at gun­point was fa­tal­ly shot dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with po­lice. A fe­male sus­pect was al­so ar­rest­ed at the scene.

Lat­er that same night, a sec­ond male sus­pect was shot and killed at his home along Old Pi­ar­co Road in Ari­ma dur­ing a fol­low-up po­lice ex­er­cise. In­ves­ti­ga­tors have iden­ti­fied both men as mem­bers of a known crim­i­nal syn­di­cate in­volved in the kid­nap­ping.

Since the op­er­a­tions, po­lice say they have un­cov­ered cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence point­ing to co­or­di­nat­ed crim­i­nal plans to tar­get law en­force­ment of­fi­cers in re­tal­i­a­tion. Both po­lice and prison of­fi­cers have re­port­ed­ly been named as po­ten­tial tar­gets.

“The in­tel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty re­mains ful­ly en­gaged and con­tin­ues to un­earth vi­tal in­for­ma­tion that is prov­ing in­stru­men­tal in dis­rupt­ing the plans of the or­gan­ised crim­i­nal syn­di­cate,” the state­ment said.

The TTPS not­ed that while the pro­fes­sion of polic­ing car­ries in­her­ent risk, those dan­gers have in­creased sig­nif­i­cant­ly un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency. Of­fi­cers have been urged to re­main vig­i­lant both on and off du­ty.

Pro­tec­tive pro­to­cols are be­ing re­in­forced across the ser­vice, with in­tel­li­gence units main­tain­ing height­ened alert. Tar­get­ed coun­ter­mea­sures are al­so be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to ad­dress emerg­ing threats.

“The TTPS re­mains un­wa­ver­ing in its com­mit­ment to safe­guard its of­fi­cers, pro­tect the pub­lic, and dis­man­tle the op­er­a­tions of crim­i­nal syn­di­cates across Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the Com­mis­sion­er’s state­ment con­clud­ed.

Fur­ther up­dates will be is­sued as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.