Two men were fa­tal­ly shot, one held and three firearms re­cov­ered by po­lice of­fi­cers this af­ter­noon fol­low­ing a sting op­er­a­tion in­to a spate of Face­book rob­beries in the Barataria dis­trict.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, on Jan­u­ary 17 dur­ing the pe­ri­od 12.30 pm and 1.30 pm, po­lice of­fi­cers at­tached to the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion (NED) In­tel­li­gence Unit, NED Task Force and Barataria Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID) re­spond­ed to a Face­book Ad in which a ve­hi­cle was be­ing of­fered for sale.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, po­lice of­fi­cers pro­ceed­ed to 11th Street, Barataria, where two sus­pects, who were al­leged­ly armed with firearms, ap­proached an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle and point­ed the firearms at plain­clothes po­lice of­fi­cers.

Oth­er po­lice of­fi­cers, who were in an­oth­er un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle parked near­by, an­nounced their pres­ence and the men al­leged­ly point­ed the firearms in the di­rec­tion of those of­fi­cers.

The law­men, in keep­ing with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) Use of Force Pol­i­cy, dis­charged their weapons in the di­rec­tion of the two sus­pects.

One of the men then took off run­ning to­wards the Mar­itime Round­about where he al­leged­ly dropped a firearm on­to the road­way.

He then ran east on­to Tenth Street and en­tered a white Nis­san B13 in an at­tempt to es­cape.

Po­lice of­fi­cers gave chase af­ter the ve­hi­cle and the sus­pect point­ed a firearm at their di­rec­tion.

The of­fi­cers, again, in keep­ing with the TTPS’ Use of Force Pol­i­cy, dis­charged their firearms in the di­rec­tion of the man, wound­ing him.

Both sus­pects were then con­veyed to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope where they were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Their iden­ti­ties re­main un­known at this time. The dri­ver of the white Nis­san B13, a 38-year-old man of Co­conut Dri­ve, Mor­vant, was con­veyed to the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion where he is as­sist­ing de­tec­tives with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

En­quiries in­to this in­ci­dent are con­tin­u­ing by Supt (Ag.) Re­vanales.