Derek Achong

Two well-known rob­bers were killed by po­lice ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing dur­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery in Ari­ma. The in­ci­dent oc­curred a few hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment on Sun­day night of a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said around 7.05 am of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (NDTF) were alert­ed to an at­tempt­ed rob­bery at Good­wood Rac­ing Ser­vice, Green Street, Ari­ma. The busi­ness place was closed at the time. Of­fi­cers re­spond­ed and were greet­ed by gun­fire from three heav­i­ly-armed rob­bers. Po­lice said they re­turned fire, wound­ing two of them in the process. They were tak­en to the Ari­ma Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty where they were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

An em­ploy­ee of the busi­ness place, who was near the shoot­ing, al­so re­ceived mi­nor in­juries and was tak­en to hos­pi­tal and treat­ed. The oth­er man, who act­ed as the get­away dri­ver and look­out, sur­ren­dered to po­lice. Po­lice re­cov­ered two au­to­mat­ic AK-47 as­sault ri­fles and a se­mi-au­to­mat­ic 9 mm pis­tol.

More than 70 spent shells were re­cov­ered by crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors who said the men each car­ried a mag­a­zine which held 35 rounds of 7.62 am­mu­ni­tion. The get­away dri­ver was ar­rest­ed and up to late yes­ter­day was as­sist­ing po­lice with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Po­lice al­so re­cov­ered a white Nis­san B15, which was used by the men dur­ing the rob­bery. In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers said the ve­hi­cle was re­port­ed stolen late Sun­day night.

Ari­ma MP, Rodger Samuel, and Ari­ma may­or Ghas­san Youseph al­so vis­it­ed the scene short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent and of­fered high praise to the of­fi­cers in­volved. Se­nior Supt David Abra­ham, Su­per­in­ten­dent Samuel Bullen, of the Ari­ma CID, and ASP Ran­dolph Boyce, of the Re­gion 2 Homi­cide Bu­reau of in­ves­ti­ga­tions, are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.