Po­lice of­fi­cers of the new­ly-formed St Joseph CID have come in for high praise by sev­er­al busi­ness own­ers in Curepe, af­ter they ar­rest­ed an armed rob­ber and res­cued two em­ploy­ees who were tied up in a fur­ni­ture store on Fri­day. It was the of­fi­cers' keen ob­ser­vance, while on mo­bile pa­trol along the South­ern Main Road in Curepe, which led to the ar­rest of a 22-year-old sus­pect, seizure of a ful­ly-loaded .38 re­volver, and the re­cov­ery of stolen loot.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, Sgt Et­ti­enne, Cpl Pe­ter­son and PCs Ramdeo, John and New­ton. of St Joseph CID, were on pa­trol around 11:30 am, when they ob­served a man stand­ing in front of Tau­rus Con­cepts, a fur­ni­ture store. Of­fi­cers said the man was act­ing in a sus­pi­cious man­ner. The law­men emerged from the po­lice ve­hi­cle and con­duct­ed a search on the man. The gun and am­mu­ni­tion were al­leged­ly found tucked in his waist. Po­lice al­so found a quan­ti­ty of cash, cell- phones and oth­er items which they be­lieved be­longed to oth­er peo­ple.

Of­fi­cers en­tered the busi­ness place and called out to the em­ploy­ees, but got no re­sponse. A search was con­duct­ed and a male and fe­male em­ploy­ee were found gagged and bound in a room. They told the law­men that a man had en­tered the premis­es ear­li­er, pre­tend­ing he was a cus­tomer, and held them up. The work­ers told of­fi­cers they were robbed of an undis­closed sum of cash and per­son­al items.

Of­fi­cers be­lieved the sus­pect was wait­ing on the out­side of the build­ing for his ac­com­plices to as­sist him in steal­ing thou­sands of dol­lars worth of fur­ni­ture. The man, of Kel­ly Vil­lage in Ca­roni, was tak­en to St Joseph CID, where he was ex­pect­ed to be placed on a se­ries of ID pa­rades.