Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

Two men are in hos­pi­tal un­der po­lice guard af­ter be­ing shot by po­lice in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents af­ter at­tack­ing law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

In Port-of-Spain, po­lice ar­rest­ed a man and seized a loaded ri­fle af­ter he fired at of­fi­cers.

Mem­bers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force were on pa­trol when they re­ceived a re­port around 9:30 pm on Fri­day about “strange men” at 42 Street, Mc Shine Lands.

Dur­ing a foot pa­trol of the area, of­fi­cers—Con­sta­bles James, Gid­dens, and Forde, led by Cor­po­ral Bood­hoo—were con­front­ed by a man wear­ing a white jer­sey and black shorts, who was armed with a gun.

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly told the man to drop his gun, but in­stead, he point­ed his gun at the of­fi­cers.  

Be­fore he could shoot, Cpl Bood­hoo fired twice, hit­ting the man in the right arm. Po­lice re­cov­ered an Amer­i­can Tac­ti­cal Om­ni Hy­brid Mul­ti­cal Ri­fle along with 21 rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion.  

He was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he re­mains in sta­ble con­di­tion.  

In the sec­ond in­ci­dent, a cut­lass-wield­ing man was shot in the leg in San­gre Grande dur­ing a po­lice ex­er­cise yes­ter­day morn­ing. Po­lice re­port­ed that, dur­ing sev­er­al op­er­a­tions car­ried out be­tween 1 am and 5 am, co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr Supt Pa­ponette and su­per­vised by In­sp Harp­er, of­fi­cers went to Swan Quar­ry in search of arms and am­mu­ni­tion. 

Around 1:45 am, while search­ing the home of a 46-year-old man, Sergeants Ramdeen, Fran­cis, and Ho­sein, along with Cpl Ma­hadeo, were at­tacked. Po­lice said the man swung a cut­lass, hit­ting the hel­met of one of the of­fi­cers. Dur­ing the at­tack, the man was shot in the left leg. Noth­ing il­le­gal was found at the man’s house.