Jensen La Vende

A 39-year-old off du­ty Spe­cial Forces reg­i­ment of­fi­cer died around 1 am yes­ter­day af­ter be­ing shot in the head in what po­lice be­lieve might have been a rob­bery gone sour.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Cpl Sher­vaun Charleau went with a 23-year-old Mor­vant woman to Fort George on Fri­day where he was hav­ing a bowl of soup and they were chat­ting. Around 10 pm when they were about to leave, a gun­man ap­proached and or­dered the two to lie on the ground. Po­lice said the gun­man shot Charleau once in the head and then start­ed rum­mag­ing in his car which was parked near­by. As the gun­man con­tin­ued rum­mag­ing in the car, the woman ran off and made her way to the St James Po­lice Sta­tion where she re­port­ed the mat­ter.

Of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force re­spond­ed to the re­port, but when they ar­rived at the scene the gun­man had al­ready made off with Charleau's gun. The of­fi­cers took the bleed­ing man to the St James Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was sta­bilised and trans­ferred to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he lat­er died. Po­lice said reg­i­ment of­fi­cers searched the bushy area on Fri­day night search­ing for the gun­man but were un­suc­cess­ful.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at their Orop­une Gar­dens home, yes­ter­day, Charleau's wife, Tracey Sankar-Charleau, said she was at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for a per­for­mance as a tra­di­tion­al mas­quer­ad­er when she was told that her hus­band had been shot.

Sankar-Charleau said she has not slept since and the hard­est thing she has had to do was to ex­plain to their four chil­dren ages 18 to eight that their fa­ther had been killed.

"He was a qui­et per­son, ask any­one. He was al­ways on his phone, on Face­book, even when he home you didn't know he was home. On De­cem­ber 26 we would have cel­e­brat­ed 19 years mar­ried and he was in the ser­vice 16 years now.

"I know the army will take care of the chil­dren, I just want his be­long­ings so I can bury him and try to move on," Sankar-Charleau said.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued by the T&T Reg­i­ment yes­ter­day, the com­mand­ing of­fi­cer and his mem­bers ex­pressed con­do­lences to the Charleau's fam­i­ly. The re­lease stat­ed that Charleau joined the mil­i­tary fam­i­ly in 1999 and be­came a Spe­cial Force Op­er­a­tor in 2004. Fu­ner­al arrange­ments for Charleau will be an­nounced soon, the re­lease added.

"The Reg­i­ment is com­mit­ted to work­ing with the TTPS to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice. Any­one with in­for­ma­tion who can as­sist with in­ves­ti­gat­ing this homi­cide is urged to con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment at 627-2781 or use 800-TIPS" the re­lease stat­ed.

Flash­back–an­oth­er sol­dier killed last year

Last year reg­i­ment of­fi­cers hunt­ed Dil­lon "Bandy" Skeete af­ter he was deemed a sus­pect in the mur­der of a sol­dier, Lance Cor­po­ral Kay­o­de Thomas. The law­men stopped search­ing af­ter Skeete was killed. They were adamant that his death was not an ex­tra-ju­di­cial killing but an­oth­er case of gang vi­o­lence in the Laven­tille area, a claim dis­missed by Skeete's rel­a­tives.

Thomas, 32, was shot dead on June 29, 2014, while on his way to his home in Bev­er­ly Hills, Laven­tille. Short­ly af­ter Thomas' killing, mem­bers of the reg­i­ment searched the homes of Skeete's rel­a­tives at Laven­tille, Champ Fleurs, To­co and Cou­va, seek­ing Skeete out. Skeete's broth­er, Du­ane, was al­so placed un­der scruti­ny in Grena­da and was held there for two days with­out charge and re­leased with­out a prop­er ex­pla­na­tion as to why he was de­tained. His at­tor­ney then told the T&T Guardian that Du­ane was be­ing held on the re­quest of the T&T au­thor­i­ties. Skeete vis­it­ed the T&T Guardian's of­fices on Ju­ly 14 to tell his side of the sto­ry. Mo­ments af­ter the in­ter­view was con­duct­ed, mem­bers of the De­fence Force vis­it­ed the T&T Guardian's St Vin­cent Street of­fice look­ing for Skeete. They left af­ter be­ing told he was not in the build­ing, but mo­ments lat­er the com­pa­ny re­ceived a call say­ing there was a bomb in the build­ing.

On Sep­tem­ber 25, Dil­lon Skeete, 30; Joel Tash, 22, a would-be Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice Of­fi­cer; and Ja­maican na­tion­al Sher­win Thomas were killed. Sher­win Thomas was the cousin of Ja­maican reg­gae singer Lewin "Louis Cul­ture" Brown. Thomas and Brown were in T&T wrap­ping up film­ing of a movie in Laven­tille be­fore Thomas was mur­dered.

An eye­wit­ness to the killing said she was with nine men lim­ing near Skeete's Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme of­fice, at Des­per­lie Cres­cent, when two ve­hi­cles passed them. The woman said a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle passed first, then an un­marked Nis­san X-Trail passed. She said she then saw the dri­vers of both ve­hi­cles speak to each oth­er be­fore the marked po­lice ve­hi­cle left. Oc­cu­pants of the black X-trail then opened fire on the group of men af­ter first or­der­ing them to kneel with their hands in the air.