Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Po­lice yes­ter­day mount­ed a land, aer­i­al and sea search for four crim­i­nals who shot two po­lice of­fi­cers af­ter they re­spond­ed to a re­port of a rob­bery and ar­rest­ed sus­pects in San Fer­nan­do.

Last night, Sgt Hay­den Man­war­ring, 43, of Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, re­mained ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion af­ter un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Man­war­ring, who has 18 years ser­vice, was shot once in the chest at point blank range with his 380 Baret­ta pis­tol.

His col­league, PC Nicholas Phillip, 29, of Daisy Street, Siparia, al­so suf­fered a gun­shot wound to his right fore­arm and a bul­let graze to his head. He was said to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal last night.

The shoot­ing trig­gered a mas­sive lock­down of the south city as South­ern, Cen­tral and South West­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers co-or­di­nat­ed one of the biggest man­hunts for the year. Af­ter four hours, all four sus­pects were ar­rest­ed.

One Big Crime Day

One sus­pect, of Table­land, was found cov­ered in blood hid­ing in the cor­ri­dors of Build­ing One at Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do, around 5 pm, while an­oth­er, of Princes Town, was nabbed close to the sea.

The third sus­pect, al­so of Princes Town, was found sit­ting in a white SUV in the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal's car park. The fourth was al­so cap­tured at Em­ba­cadere around 6.30 pm.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said around 2 pm, Man­war­ring and a par­ty of of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to a re­port of a rob­bery at Mom's Din­er on Cipero Street, San Fer­nan­do. A dis­tress call was made but the thieves es­caped in a white AD wag­on.

How­ev­er, Man­war­ring's team in­ter­cept­ed the get­away car close to Ra­hamut's Ser­vice Sta­tion at Cross Cross­ing. At­ten­dant Sham Sookram said, "The po­lice put them (sus­pects) to lie down and then took them away."How­ev­er, the of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly fol­lowed more sus­pects at Pad­more Street, where there was an ex­change of gun­fire. Dur­ing this melee, one of the men wres­tled away Man­war­ring's gun and shot him in the chest. Phillip was al­so shot but man­aged to call for back­up. The sus­pects then es­caped from the ve­hi­cle.

Se­nior Supt Ce­cil San­tana mo­bilised troops and scores of po­lice re­spond­ed. They trudged through dense man­groves, the Em­ba­cadere dump and the Gulf of Paria shore­line at Kings Wharf, search­ing for the sus­pects.

The po­lice he­li­copter al­so hov­ered while the city was on lock­down. De­tec­tives al­so board­ed the San Fer­nan­do wa­ter taxi and searched pas­sen­gers. They lat­er found a sus­pect at Build­ing One, Em­ba­cadere.

Po­lice found one sus­pect ly­ing on the ground cov­ered in blood. As he was brought down­stairs, with a T-shirt cov­er­ing his face, one of the res­i­dents shout­ed, "Thank God they ar­rest him. Is one day for the po­lice and one day for the thief."