Ak­ile Si­mon

A gun bat­tle be­tween po­lice and three sus­pect­ed rob­bers yes­ter­day at the Mara­cas St Joseph home of a se­nior jour­nal­ist has re­sult­ed in one of the in­trud­ers be­ing shot.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred around mid­day at the Bueno Vista home of Clevon Raphael, a colum­nist at the T&T Guardian and news di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Vi­sion Ltd. Po­lice were up to late yes­ter­day search­ing for two oth­er men, one of them be­lieved to be wound­ed. The ar­rest­ed man was held hid­ing in Raphael's bed­room.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said of­fi­cers of the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed to a re­port that three in­trud­ers were seen at Raphael's home. When the law­men got to the scene, they dis­cov­ered a back slid­ing door miss­ing. Of­fi­cers said as they en­tered the house, they were shot at. The po­lice re­turned fire. Po­lice said they re­cov­ered sev­er­al house­hold items at the back of the house.

The rob­bers, po­lice said, ran­sacked the en­tire house and stole cash, jew­el­ry and com­put­ers, among oth­er items.

Raphael said he had no com­ment on the in­ci­dent. At the time of the in­ci­dent, po­lice said, no one was at home. Of­fi­cers said the men climbed a wall at the back of the premis­es and re­moved a glass slid­ing door to gain ac­cess in­to the house. Up to late yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion­al Task Force were in the Mara­cas St Joseph area fol­low­ing a trail of blood, look­ing for the es­caped rob­bers.

Of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions and the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit vis­it­ed the scene and dust­ed for fin­ger­prints. ASP Moses, Cpls Charles, Ram­char­ran and PC Grant of the St Joseph CID al­so vis­it­ed the scene and are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.