Ak­ile Si­mon

Po­lice shot and killed three men who were in­volved in a mur­der at Sama­roo Vil­lage, Ari­ma, dur­ing a con­fronta­tion in Mor­vant on Thurs­day night.

A fourth sus­pect, 31, of Sec­ond Cale­do­nia Road, Mor­vant, was un­der po­lice guard at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was tak­en for ob­ser­va­tion.

The dead men have been iden­ti­fied as Joel Ro­main, 19, a for­mer na­tion­al ju­nior sprint­er, Ker­win "Lal" Joseph, 24, and Akee Ca­ballero, 32. All the vic­tims lived at Sec­ond Cale­do­nia Road. Of­fi­cers of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force said short­ly af­ter 11 pm, they spot­ted a white B-14 Nis­san Sun­ny, pro­ceed­ing west along the East­ern Main Road near Mor­vant Junc­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the ve­hi­cle fit­ted the de­scrip­tion of the car in­volved in the mur­der of Ryan Rivers, 24, who was shot and killed a short dis­tance from his Sama­roo Vil­lage, Ari­ma, home. That in­ci­dent oc­curred short­ly af­ter 10 pm.

Po­lice said they turned on the strobe lights on their ve­hi­cle and us­ing the car's speak­er sys­tem called on the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle to pull over. "They just drove through a no-en­try sign and sped up Sec­ond Cale­do­nia and we gave chase," one of the of­fi­cers told the T&T Guardian. Of­fi­cers said they called for back-up. The sus­pects, po­lice said, be­gan fir­ing at them in the vicin­i­ty of the Church on the Rock. The of­fi­cers re­turned fire. Joseph, po­lice said, was the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle. He crashed the car a short dis­tance away. As of­fi­cers ap­proached the ve­hi­cle, they saw a man run­ning away from the scene. He was called up­on to stop but con­tin­ued run­ning with an ob­ject in his had. The man was shot once in the leg by of­fi­cers. He told them he was walk­ing through a track speak­ing on his cell­phone when he heard gun shots. He said he got scared and be­gan to run, even though he heard voic­es or­der­ing him to stop. He was not an oc­cu­pant of the ve­hi­cle.

The killers were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where they died while un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery. A sus­pect, who was al­so in the ve­hi­cle, but, was not in­jured, was tak­en to hos­pi­tal for ob­ser­va­tion. Po­lice said he has not spo­ken since the in­ci­dent. Of­fi­cers re­cov­ered a 9mm pis­tol and a .38 re­volver. Po­lice said the front of the po­lice ve­hi­cle was dam­aged by a bul­let. Akee, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said, was one of the coun­try's best get­away dri­vers. "He of­ten gave us a run for our mon­ey... Lots of times dur­ing high-speed chas­es with him, we lost him. I be­lieve he was one of the best get­away dri­vers we have ever come across," one of­fi­cer said. He was al­so fin­gered as one of the men in­volved in the mur­der of three peo­ple who were shot while lim­ing at the vil­lage night club in Ari­ma.