Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A 19-year-old Barataria man is now un­der po­lice guard at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope, af­ter he was shot by an off-du­ty po­lice­man dur­ing a botched rob­bery over the week­end.

Po­lice re­port­ed that just af­ter 1 pm on Sat­ur­day, three masked men, one armed with a gun, went to Kin’s Su­per­mar­ket along the South­ern Main Road, Curepe, and at­tempt­ed to rob the es­tab­lish­ment.

Po­lice said Con­sta­ble Le­ston Punter, of the Ari­ma CID, was in the gro­cery when he heard the com­mo­tion and drew his per­son­al firearm and fired in the di­rec­tion of the men.

The three ran off but the teen, who had been ac­cost­ing the cashier at the time the of­fi­cer fired at them, col­lapsed out­side the gro­cery store, where he was ar­rest­ed and tak­en to hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

The oth­er two men aban­doned their ac­com­plice and es­caped.

The in­ci­dent was cap­tured on CCTV and am­a­teur video, which was shared on so­cial me­dia.

Sat­ur­day’s shoot­ing comes days af­ter po­lice killed a man in an al­leged shootout min­utes af­ter he and three oth­ers robbed an ice fac­to­ry in Cen­tral Trinidad.

Po­lice re­port­ed that at 9.40 am on Oc­to­ber 30, of­fi­cers re­ceived a re­port of a rob­bery in progress at an ice fac­to­ry at Ca­paro Bras­so Val­ley Road, Ca­paro.

Of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force re­spond­ed and while on the way, they saw a black Hyundai Elantra match­ing the get­away car.

The of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to in­ter­cept the car along Ca­paro Bras­so Val­ley, but the dri­ver swerved while a back seat pas­sen­ger opened fire on the of­fi­cers who re­turned fire as the four men came out shoot­ing at the of­fi­cers.

One man was shot, col­lapsed and sub­se­quent­ly died at hos­pi­tal while the oth­ers es­caped.

Po­lice said they are await­ing a pos­i­tive iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from the man’s rel­a­tives be­fore dis­clos­ing his iden­ti­ty.