Less than an hour in­to an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in the South West­ern Di­vi­sion, a po­lice con­sta­ble and an al­leged sus­pect were shot dead in Guapo on the out­skirts of Point Fortin.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar did not dis­close the de­tails of the shoot­ing in­ci­dent that claimed the lives of Con­sta­ble Kr­ish­na Ba­na­har, 25, and al­leged sus­pect Hakim Joseph, 44, a fa­ther of two, as he said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was on­go­ing. He said the po­lice re­cov­ered a Glock pis­tol that was al­tered to func­tion as an au­to­mat­ic gun at the scene.

 A 35-year-old sus­pect was ar­rest­ed hours lat­er in the Guapo area. Mys­tar said around 4:45 am of­fi­cers of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion, in­clud­ing Ba­na­har, went to a house at St Rose Street in Gon­za­les Vil­lage to ex­e­cute a search war­rant for firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

 He said there was a com­mo­tion and the of­fi­cers were greet­ed with gun­fire, and Ba­na­har was shot sev­er­al times. The of­fi­cer was pro­nounced dead at the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal around 5:20 am.

  The po­lice al­so took Joseph to the hos­pi­tal. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty, Joseph's rel­a­tives were an­gry and sad­dened over the in­ci­dent. Joseph's grief-strick­en fa­ther, Lin­coln Joseph, who lives near­by, said his son (Joseph) walked to his broth­er's house to in­form him about what was hap­pen­ing. The po­lice pur­sued him, and there was a strug­gle. He was asleep when he heard the com­mo­tion, and his ini­tial thoughts were that ban­dits were at­tack­ing them. Ad­mit­ting that he was afraid, he re­called hear­ing one of his sons say­ing to call the po­lice. "My son walk up the hill by me, and they fol­lowed him up the road by me, and then the scram­bling start, and I hear­ing the com­mo­tion, but my daugh­ter tell me don't go out. I hear bul­lets, I say my son dead."

 He said his 15-year-old grand­son (Joseph's broth­er's son) was beat­en and hand­cuffed at the scene but was not ar­rest­ed. The fa­ther said he did not see Joseph or Ba­na­har when he went out­side and on­ly found out lat­er that they had died. While some of­fi­cers were dressed in po­lice uni­forms, he said Ba­na­har was not.  He lament­ed, "You see this, peo­ple dress­ing like po­lice caus­ing a bac­cha­nal be­cause when this hap­pens and you see some­body in your place, you feel is a ban­dit. You not sure is po­lice; prob­a­bly some­thing like that hap­pened there." He said the po­lice asked for the CCTV footage, and he gave it to them.

  In an in­ter­view at the Guapo Po­lice Sta­tion, Mys­tar con­firmed that Ba­na­har was at­tached to the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (Siparia) and, as a de­tec­tive, was not re­quired to wear the uni­form.

 De­scrib­ing Ba­na­har as a very ded­i­cat­ed and mo­ti­vat­ed of­fi­cer, he said the TTPS was deeply sad­dened over his loss but will not stop try­ing to keep cit­i­zens safe.

This in­ci­dent was the third po­lice-in­volved killing in less than a week.

He said, "We con­tin­ue to be re­silient; we are will­ing, we are ready for the fight as it re­lates to these crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties so we will con­tin­ue to fight."

 At Ba­na­har's home in Fyz­abad, where he lived with his par­ents and broth­ers, his par­ents were too dis­traught to speak with the me­dia. One of his cousins said he was at home when his col­leagues picked him up around 4 pm to go on the ex­er­cise.

 She said the po­lice did not in­form the fam­i­ly when he was killed. She found out on Face­book some­time af­ter 6 am, and a neigh­bour in­formed his par­ents that he had been shot. They learnt of his death when they ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal. She re­called that he had his heart set on el­e­vat­ing quick­ly through the ranks and was set to write the fi­nal cor­po­ral pro­mo­tion ex­am­i­na­tion on Sat­ur­day.

"He had al­ways want­ed to be a po­lice of­fi­cer," she said, adding, "He was go­ing very well and want­ed to go up the ranks."

  His cousin lament­ed that he would have cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day on De­cem­ber 11 and was pas­sion­ate about fit­ness ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing marathons and hikes.

 Er­la: Stop pro­tect­ing sons, rel­a­tives, friends in­volved in crime

 Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher de­scribed yes­ter­day as an­oth­er sad day for of­fi­cers of the TTPS as they are again ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the re­al­i­ty of the loss of one of their col­leagues in the line of du­ty. No 20968 PC Kr­ish­na Ba­na­har died fol­low­ing an in­ci­dent where of­fi­cers were shot at while con­duct­ing an ex­er­cise at St Rose Street, Gon­za­les Vil­lage, Guapo. In a state­ment, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said when a law en­force­ment of­fi­cer be­comes the vic­tim of the crim­i­nal el­e­ment in the line of du­ty, it is gross­ly dis­con­cert­ing and a very se­ri­ous cause for con­cern.

  "This in­ci­dent re­in­forces the very re­al threat that po­lice of­fi­cers face every day they leave their fam­i­lies and re­port for du­ty to pro­tect and serve their na­tion. And they do so coura­geous­ly and un­hesi­tant­ly in the in­ter­est of en­sur­ing the safe­ty of our cit­i­zens. In the face of an ex­pec­tant and des­per­ate pop­u­la­tion call­ing for of­fi­cers to do more, the fact is the vast ma­jor­i­ty of of­fi­cers are ful­ly in­vest­ed in this chal­lenge of com­bat­ing vi­o­lent crime and giv­ing their all, at the ex­pense of their very life," she said.

  She added, "We can­not con­tin­ue to pro­tect sons, rel­a­tives, neigh­bours, and friends who we know or sus­pect to be in­volved in com­mit­ting vi­o­lent crime. It does not serve us or our na­tion well when we seem to co­op­er­ate in pro­tect­ing the few per­sons bent on dis­rupt­ing our so­ci­ety and in­still­ing fear in our cit­i­zen­ry. We need to ex­pose the crim­i­nals. We need the pop­u­la­tion to co­op­er­ate with the po­lice now to bring an im­me­di­ate end to their crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties," she said.

  She said Con­sta­ble Ba­na­har served the TTPS with dis­tinc­tion for four years.