Ak­ile Si­mon

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Shi­va Ram­rat­tans­ingh, one of two of­fi­cers in­volved in a gun bat­tle with a gang in the Sea Lots area last Mon­day, is be­ing hailed a hero. As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice Lennard Gay said Ram­rat­tans­ingh's ac­tion was wor­thy of an award. He mirac­u­lous­ly es­caped a bar­rage of bul­lets fired up­on an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle near the old fish mar­ket. Gay was a pas­sen­ger in the front seat of the ve­hi­cle when it came un­der fire. Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian at Po­lice Head­quar­ters on Thurs­day, Gay de­scribed Ram­rat­tans­ingh's ac­tion as out­stand­ing and re­mark­able. Gay said they were on their way to turn the ve­hi­cle when they passed a group of five men stand­ing on the road­way.

Af­ter one of the men shout­ed "lights," bul­lets rained on the po­lice ve­hi­cle, he said. "They were stand­ing up nor­mal and they just start to fire," he said. "They just start­ed blaz­ing shots at us, and Ram­rat­tans­ingh start­ed to shoot first, then I fol­lowed. "But if you see how he spin that ve­hi­cle around with­out look­ing back...I couldn't be­lieve it, be­cause shots were com­ing from all dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions." Gay said it ap­peared the gun­men didn't want Ram­rat­tans­ingh or him to leave the area alive. He ad­mit­ted the as­sailants ap­peared to have so­phis­ti­cat­ed weapons, com­pared to the pis­tol Ram­rat­tans­ingh and he car­ried.

"When we were go­ing back out on the street, is heavy gun­fire from the next side...They de­cide we wasn't com­ing out of there alive," he said. "They got a good fight with what we had, even though we re­alised the heavy pow­er they had was no match for us. He said ex­pe­ri­ence, train­ing and their in­stinct were al­so re­spon­si­ble for their sur­vival. Both Gay and Ram­rat­tans­ingh are on leave. Head of the CID Snr Supt Glenn Hack­ett said the in­ci­dent might have stemmed from on­go­ing war­fare be­tween a Sea Lots gang and an­oth­er from the West­ern Di­vi­sion (Co­corite).