Derek Achong

In a shock­ing twist of fate, a re­porter and a cam­era­man, em­ployed with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN), were held on Sun­day evening by po­lice fol­low­ing a dar­ing rob­bery of a liquor store in Arou­ca. The jour­nal­ist along with two oth­er em­ploy­ees of the In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain-based me­dia con­glom­er­ate, were said to be in po­lice cus­tody af­ter be­ing caught at the scene of the rob­bery. Up to late yes­ter­day, the Ex­press re­porter was de­tained at the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion while be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed in con­nec­tion with Sun­day's rob­bery. Se­nior po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors said yes­ter­day the trio was al­so be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in con­nec­tion with a se­ries of re­cent hold-ups in which the vic­tims re­port­ed that they were robbed by men pos­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers. The T&T Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed three men en­tered the busi­ness­place af­ter pre­sent­ing the own­er with a fraud­u­lent search war­rant. The men re­lieved the pro­pri­etor of more than $250,000 in TT and US cur­ren­cy and al­so re­moved a case of John­ny Walk­er Scotch whisky be­fore at­tempt­ing to flee the scene.

Ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cial po­lice re­ports, around 8 pm, the own­er of the store, lo­cat­ed along Range Road, Five Rivers, Arou­ca, re­port­ed to of­fi­cers of the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion that he was be­ing robbed. The law­men re­spond­ed and were re­port­ed­ly met with gun­fire from the sus­pects. Af­ter a shootout, which last­ed less than five min­utes, all four men sur­ren­dered. The sus­pects were said to be wear­ing bul­let-proof vests but no masks. One of the sus­pects, a 27-year-old Port-of-Spain res­i­dent, sus­tained a gun­shot wound to the right leg. He was tak­en to hos­pi­tal where he re­mained ward­ed up to late yes­ter­day. The cam­era­man, a fa­ther of one from Ari­ma, was found seat­ed in the dri­ver's seat of a grey Toy­ota Hilux pick-up truck, reg­is­tered to CCN, which was al­leged­ly to be used as the get-away ve­hi­cle. Sources with­in the me­dia house re­vealed that the cam­era­man was au­tho­rised to take the com­pa­ny ve­hi­cle home on evenings and he did so on Sun­day af­ter­noon. The ve­hi­cle was im­pound­ed at the Arou­ca Sta­tion up to late yes­ter­day evening. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the ve­hi­cle was said to be out­fit­ted with flash­ing blue strobe lights on the dash board, a fea­ture which is re­served for ve­hi­cles used by the pro­tec­tive ser­vices. Po­lice sources close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed yes­ter­day the re­porter, who is be­lieved to be the mas­ter­mind, was caught by po­lice bran­dish­ing a loaded 9 mm pis­tol.

Lat­er checks by in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­vealed the gun was stolen from a li­censed firearm own­er dur­ing a rob­bery ear­li­er this year. The wound­ed sus­pect was al­so said to be in pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal firearm which was seized at the scene. In­ves­ti­ga­tors at the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion were said to be work­ing on the the­o­ry that the group was be­hind sev­er­al rob­beries of busi­ness­places along the East-West Cor­ri­dor. Dur­ing a search of the re­porter's Curepe apart­ment by of­fi­cers of the Po­lice Spe­cial Branch sev­er­al uni­forms for pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies were found. It is al­so be­lieved that the group was able to stay clear of sus­pi­cion be­cause of the re­porter's se­nior and high-pro­file con­tacts with­in the ser­vice, po­lice sources said. The men all face mul­ti­ple charges. which in­clude pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion, armed rob­bery, im­per­son­at­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, ut­ter­ing a false doc­u­ment and shoot­ing with in­tent. Crim­i­nal charges are ex­pect­ed to be laid fol­low­ing sev­er­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades which will take place to­day and to­mor­row.

While speak­ing at the dai­ly po­lice press brief­ing, Po­lice Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer Sgt Wayne Mys­tar con­firmed the in­ci­dent. Stat­ing that the Po­lice Ser­vice had re­ceived many re­ports of peo­ple pre­tend­ing to be po­lice of­fi­cers and lat­er car­ry­ing out rob­beries, Mys­tar said all com­plaints will be dealt with once peo­ple come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion. Un­able to say if the High Per­for­mance Team had been called in to take over the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which could pos­si­bly ex­tend to in­clude po­lice of­fi­cers as well, Mys­tar said: "It is pre­ma­ture to make any as­sump­tions. If our in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­veals any link­age, then they will be brought out, but up to now, no," he said. Mys­tar said while the in­ci­dent had placed greater scruti­ny on the re­la­tion­ship be­tween re­porters and po­lice, he did not en­vi­sion that it would be great­ly af­fect­ed. As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Ter­ry Young and Se­nior Supt of the North­ern Di­vi­sion David Abra­ham are head­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dents.