An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Sama­roo Dri­ve, Bam­boo Num­ber 3, Val­sayn, were rocked out of their sleep around 5 am yes­ter­day, as an al­leged gun­fight en­sued when po­lice of­fi­cers stormed a rent­ed apart­ment to ap­pre­hend a sus­pect in an on­go­ing ex­tor­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

When it was over, two in­jured peo­ple were tak­en to hos­pi­tal, where they lat­er died.

The de­ceased were iden­ti­fied as Paul Bac­chus and his Venezue­lan girl­friend An­draz Ro­driguez.

Se­nior North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion po­lice of­fi­cers, along with of­fi­cials from the An­ti Cor­rup­tion Unit (ACU), ar­rived at the pri­vate res­i­dence around 4.50 am yes­ter­day and at­tempt­ed to breach the six-foot high steel gate to ac­cess the ground-floor apart­ment.

It was al­leged that the sus­pects be­gan shoot­ing at the of­fi­cers, prompt­ing them to re­turn fire.

The two were lat­er found alive but bad­ly in­jured.

Of­fi­cers took the vic­tims to the near­by Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where they were treat­ed but lat­er suc­cumbed to their in­juries.

Their deaths pushed the num­ber of fa­tal po­lice-in­volved killings to 16 for the year so far.

Still vis­i­bly shak­en hours af­ter the shoot­ing, res­i­dents of Sama­roo Dri­ve yes­ter­day said they were shocked and sad­dened to learn both per­sons had died.

One man, whose fam­i­ly was close to the two de­ceased, said, “We feel quite dis­ap­point­ed with what hap­pened be­cause we nev­er know him to be that kind of per­son.”

The cou­ple moved in­to the apart­ment three months ago, and ac­cord­ing to him, “they nev­er show no bad face to any­one.”

He said Bac­chus was a hum­ble man who, de­spite pre­vi­ous run-ins with the law, meant no dis­re­spect to any­one.

Bac­chus re­cent­ly be­gan work­ing with a plumber and the man turned up yes­ter­day morn­ing to col­lect Bac­chus as usu­al for work. They said he was dev­as­tat­ed to find out what had tran­spired and was left shak­en.

Peo­ple liv­ing close by re­fused to speak, but the fam­i­ly with whom the cou­ple had spent most of their time mourned the loss.

“He was no dis­re­spect­ful per­son... and we cyah be­lieve what they say­ing he was,” one man said.

An­oth­er said, “He was no threat to any­body. He prob­a­bly had his ways from be­fore... but there was no rea­son for it to go down like that.”

Of­fi­cers claimed to have re­cov­ered a gun at the scene.

And in a sep­a­rate fa­tal po­lice-in­volved killing on Wednes­day in La Hor­quet­ta, Mar­vin Cooke, 30, of Getwell Av­enue, Pin­to, Ari­ma, was shot as he al­leged­ly fired at po­lice as he at­tempt­ed to es­cape.

The in­ci­dent be­gan around 2.55 pm, af­ter of­fi­cers on pa­trol re­ceived a re­port that a white Toy­ota Yaris had been tak­en away from the own­er at gun­point in the Pin­to dis­trict.

It was al­leged that of­fi­cers from var­i­ous ju­ris­dic­tions pur­sued the sus­pect un­til the car crashed along He­li­co­nia Cres­cent, La Hor­quet­ta.

It was claimed the dri­ver, who was lat­er iden­ti­fied as Cooke, ex­it­ed the car and fired at of­fi­cers as he es­caped over the wall of a house on the street.

Al­though of­fi­cers searched the area, they were un­able to lo­cate the sus­pect.

How­ev­er, as foren­sic of­fi­cers were pro­cess­ing the scene, they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that Cooke had been seen hid­ing in the yard of a house along Plumba­go Av­enue, La Hor­quet­ta.

As of­fi­cers mount­ed a search and sur­round­ed the prop­er­ty, two law­men climbed the front wall and con­front­ed Cooke.

Iden­ti­fy­ing them­selves and or­der­ing him to drop the gun, of­fi­cers claimed he in­stead fired at them, forc­ing them to re­turn fire.

It was re­port­ed that one of the of­fi­cers dis­charged as many as 12 rounds in the di­rec­tion of Cooke, caus­ing him to fall to the ground.

Law­men lat­er seized a Glock 19 pis­tol with a mag­a­zine con­tain­ing 13 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

The of­fi­cers took Cooke to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.