Yvonne?Ba­boolal

The leader of a San­gre Grande-based car theft ring–who was known for tar­get­ing women–and his ac­com­plice were killed dur­ing a shootout with po­lice on Thurs­day.Beres­ford As­soon, who po­lice said was want­ed in every di­vi­sion for rob­bery and as­sault of­fences, died at the Cou­va Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty. His ac­com­plice re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to late yes­ter­day. Po­lice said As­soon had sev­er­al mat­ters be­fore the court and had re­cent­ly threat­ened to kill mem­bers of the Stolen Ve­hi­cles Squad (SVS) who were look­ing for him.

Around 9.50 pm Thurs­day, As­soon and the oth­er man am­bushed a Cou­va fam­i­ly at gun­point as they en­tered their Roys­to­nia home in a Ford Ranger pick-up. They or­dered the fam­i­ly, who had re­turned from shop­ping at Xtra Foods Su­per­mar­ket, Ch­agua­nas, out of the ve­hi­cle, jumped in and drove off.Po­lice were called and the Ch­agua­nas CID led by Sr Supt John­ny Abra­ham and units from San Fer­nan­do start­ed a search for the ve­hi­cle. Road­blocks were set up in Cou­va and Freeport.

The men crashed the Ford Ranger along the way, but got in­to a white Toy­ota Corol­la wag­on and con­tin­ued on. But they were blocked by the po­lice in St Mary's, Freeport.In an at­tempt to elude of­fi­cers, the dri­ver of the get­away car turned in the op­po­site di­rec­tion on­to the Old South­ern Main Road, but wa again blocked by the po­lice in Mc Bean Vil­lage, where the men aban­doned the car and ran in­to a cane­field.

Cor­nered by po­lice, they were called out to sur­ren­der, but replied with gun­shots. Abra­ham said po­lice fired back and two of the men were shot.They were tak­en for med­ical at­ten­tion but died short­ly af­ter.Po­lice said yes­ter­day that As­soon usu­al­ly robbed women of their ve­hi­cles af­ter as­sault­ing them.

Ear­li­er vic­tim es­capes in Ch­agua­nas

Ear­li­er in the day, the two men and an­oth­er ac­com­plice had al­so tried to rob a 60-year-old Ch­agua­nas man of his three-month-old ve­hi­cle.Yes­ter­day, res­i­dents of Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas, hailed the man for his quick think­ing and equal­ly quick feet, which they be­lieved saved him from be­ing robbed and pos­si­bly killed.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, an eye­wit­ness at Cen­tral Av­enue said, "Me and the neigh­bour (name with­held) were stand­ing in front my gate talk­ing about 7.30 pm. This ve­hi­cle he had bought three months ago was parked near­by and he had the keys in his hand."A white car pulled up and three men came out and went in­to the car. The big fat one was the same man who po­lice killed and whose pic­ture was on TV.

"Re­al­is­ing what was go­ing on, the neigh­bour quick­ly im­mo­bilised the en­gine with a de­vice in the car keys and took off run­ning. While run­ning, he pelt­ed the keys in­to a near­by yard and head­ed to­wards The Rise restau­rant and bar."An­oth­er res­i­dent said the breath­less man called po­lice as he reached The Rise, drank a beer and wait­ed. Po­lice ar­rived soon af­ter and found the car keys stuck in the mud in the yard.

Thank­ing Cen­tral res­i­dents for work­ing with the po­lice, Abra­ham re­peat­ed his warn­ing to crim­i­nals, "Stay away from Cen­tral. We are go­ing to deal de­ci­sive­ly with you if you don't sur­ren­der."