Jensen La Vende

An off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer with 13 years ser­vice was shot once in the head on Sun­day night, me­tres away from the head­quar­ters of Po­lice Spe­cial Branch, St James.

Mont­gomery Guy, 49, of Bon Air Gar­dens, Arou­ca, was tak­en to the St James Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty by con­sta­bles Lan­cast­er and Re­my but was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival around 9.30 pm.

Po­lice said Guy picked up two peo­ple at Agra Street, a man and woman, short­ly be­fore the shoot­ing. He was shot by the male pas­sen­ger while dri­ving.

Of­fi­cers said res­i­dents of Agra Street, St James, heard at least two gun­shots be­fore hear­ing a crash­ing sound. When they in­ves­ti­gat­ed, they saw a Toy­ota Corol­la mount­ed on the pave­ment af­ter it crashed in­to a wall. Guy's body was slumped in the dri­ver's seat.

The shoot­er ran from the scene, eye­wit­ness said.

Min­utes af­ter the shoot­ing, a 21-year-old woman, drenched in blood walked in­to the St James Po­lice Sta­tion and gave an ac­count of the in­ci­dent.

Po­lice said she was a "per­son of in­ter­est" and re­mained in cus­tody as­sist­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors. Eye­wit­ness­es said the shoot­er had re­turned to the scene look­ing for the woman.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, a male rel­a­tive of Guy said he was one of the "coolest" po­lice of­fi­cers out there.

"We eh know if they try to take the car or what. My broth­er not no wild man, not no gang­ster. He cool. One of the coolest po­lice you go meet. He was in High­way Pa­trol. I tell yuh we so con­fused," the rel­a­tive said.

Po­lice said they have ruled out rob­bery as Guy's valu­ables were still in the car. His rel­a­tive said he was not the type to work PH taxi.

A state­ment is­sued by the Po­lice Ser­vice said Guy, a sin­gle fa­ther, was off-du­ty when he was killed. Guy was at­tached to the La Hor­quet­ta High­way Pa­trol.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion team is head­ed by Snr Supt Os­wald Cud­joe and in­cludes Supt An­cil Cor­bett, In­sp Micheal Veronique, Act­ing Sgt Stanis­laus and Con­sta­bles Teles­ford and Hec­tor of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions.

It added that act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams joined with mem­bers of the ser­vice in ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the fall­en of­fi­cer.

On Guy's Face­book page, well-wish­ers ex­pressed their sad­ness at his loss. His col­leagues told the T&T Guardian all was done to save his life but it was not enough.

In an un­re­lat­ed mur­der, rel­a­tives of Lawrence "LJ" Vil­laroel said he ig­nored death threats in the San­gre Grande area and was killed on Sat­ur­day night. Speak­ing with the me­dia at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, rel­a­tives who did not want to be iden­ti­fied for fear of reprisals, said about a month ago Vil­laroel, 20, was re­ceiv­ing threats.

Asked why any­one would want to kill their loved one, a fe­male rel­a­tive said: "Boy, when you know thing you not sup­posed to know, or see some­thing you not sup­posed to see, and then re­mem­ber he young too and he like to talk, so I guess­ing he talk and tell oth­ers that he see some­thing. Yeah, you can't trust no­body these days. No­body at all."

The rel­a­tive added that three days pri­or to his killing she had a pre­mo­ni­tion. She said she be­gan feel­ing ill and said it was "bad vibes." She said he told her broth­er about it and warned him to move out of the area but he re­fused be­cause of his girl­friend.

"When you get­ting threats and thing you have to take them se­ri­ous­ly. I don't know if he make a re­port but I know po­lice," she said.

Po­lice said Vil­lorel was gunned down by an un­known at­tack­er at Celi­na Cir­cu­lar, Damarie Hill, Guaico. Vil­lorel, of Pic­ton Ex­ten­sion Road, San­gre Grande, was at­tacked while on his way to vis­it friends.

He was shot sev­er­al times in his chest and about the body.

The two lat­est mur­ders have tak­en the toll to 333 for the year.