Ban­dits ab­duct­ed an as­sis­tant man­ag­er, took her to Massy Su­per­store in La Ro­maine, forced her to open the vault and es­caped with mon­ey on Fri­day night. 

But, as they were es­cap­ing in the vic­tim’s ve­hi­cle, they en­gaged in a shoot-out with the po­lice and one of the three sus­pects were killed.   

He re­mained uniden­ti­fied up to a short while ago. The as­sis­tant man­ag­er had se­cured and locked the busi­ness place at Bam­boo Round­about around 9:45 pm and left in her sil­ver Nis­san Ti­i­da hatch­back for home.  

While dri­ving along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way near the Petrotrin pond in Gas­par­il­lo she re­alised that a white SUV with blue flash­ing lights tail­gat­ing her.  

Think­ing they were the po­lice, she pull on­to the shoul­der. Three oc­cu­pants armed with firearms dressed in dark cloth­ing, wear­ing bul­let­proof vests with the mark­ings PO­LICE in front and black ski masks cov­er­ing their faces, ap­proached her. 

They told her they knew her name and or­dered her to sit in the back seat of her ve­hi­cle. They en­tered her ve­hi­cle and took her to Massy Stores where they in­struct­ed her to open the doors and the safe. 

They stole mon­ey and es­caped in her Ti­i­da. Of­fi­cers of the South­ern and Port of Spain Di­vi­sions in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle at Cross Cross­ing in­ter­change in San Fer­nan­do where there was an ex­change of gun­fire. 

One of the sus­pects was shot while the oth­er two ran off. The in­jured ban­dit was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal and pro­nounced dead around 11:52 pm. 

Po­lice re­cov­ered $15,400 in as­sort­ed bills, the vic­tim’s purse and cell­phone and one bul­let­proof vest with the mark­ing PO­LICE in the vic­tim’s car.  

Lat­er that night of­fi­cers from the La Ro­maine Po­lice Post ar­rest­ed two sus­pects who are as­sist­ing the po­lice with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Po­lice are search­ing for an­oth­er sus­pect. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.