Shane Su­perville

A po­lice ex­er­cise in St Joseph ear­ly on Mon­day morn­ing led to the death of two men.

Po­lice said of­fi­cers of var­i­ous elite tac­ti­cal units be­gan an ex­er­cise on San Pe­dro Road, off the Mara­cas Roy­al Road, at around 5 am where they searched sev­er­al hous­es.

The po­lice re­port­ed that they were shot at by men.

The of­fi­cers re­turned fire hit­ting both men.

Of­fi­cers were un­able to con­firm the iden­ti­ties of the men up to 11.20 am on Mon­day.

Two guns were al­so found and seized from the men's bod­ies.

At least one mar­i­jua­na field was found in the same area near­by.

Po­lice ar­rest­ed sev­en men and a woman dur­ing the ex­er­cise.

As of 11.20 am of­fi­cers were await­ing mem­bers of a spe­cialised unit to clear the mar­i­jua­na field of any trap guns or ob­struc­tions so that de­struc­tion may be­gin.

The ex­er­cise in­volved of­fi­cers of the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF), the Mul­ti Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Squad and the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tion Task Force.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene on Mon­day sev­er­al res­i­dents were hes­i­tant to talk.

One man who claimed to be a rel­a­tive of one of the men in­volved in the shoot­ing said that he could not di­vulge the per­son's iden­ti­ty with­out first con­firm­ing whether or not he was ac­tu­al­ly dead.