Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is warn­ing crim­i­nals not to at­tack his of­fi­cers, or else they will face dire con­se­quences.

Gue­var­ro is­sued the warn­ing in a me­dia re­lease on Sat­ur­day, in the wake of two in­ci­dents where peo­ple at­tacked his of­fi­cers.

In one of the in­ci­dents, po­lice re­port­ed that mem­bers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force were on pa­trol around 9.30 pm on Fri­day when they re­ceived a re­port about “strange men” at 42 Street, Mc Shine Lands, Laven­tille.

Dur­ing a foot pa­trol of the area, con­sta­bles James, Gid­dens and Forde, led by cor­po­ral Bood­hoo, were con­front­ed by a man wear­ing a white jer­sey and black shorts who was armed with a gun.

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly told the man to drop his gun but he in­stead point­ed it at the of­fi­cers.

Be­fore he could shoot, Cpl Bood­hoo fired twice, hit­ting the man in the right arm. Po­lice re­cov­ered an Amer­i­can Tac­ti­cal Om­ni Hy­brid Mul­ti-Tac­ti­cal Ri­fle (AR15) along with 21 rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion.

The sus­pect was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he re­mains in sta­ble con­di­tion.

In the sec­ond in­ci­dent, po­lice shot a San­gre Grande man who at­tacked them when they went to search his home.

Po­lice re­port­ed that a cut­lass-wield­ing man was shot in the leg in an ex­er­cise on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Po­lice re­port­ed that around 1.45 am, while search­ing the home of a 46-year-old man, Sgts Ramdeen, Fran­cis and Ho­sein, along with Cpl Ma­hadeo, were at­tacked.

Po­lice said the man swung a cut­lass, hit­ting the hel­met of one of the of­fi­cers. Dur­ing the at­tack, the man was shot in the left leg. Noth­ing il­le­gal was found at the man’s house.

In the re­lease, Gue­var­ro warned, “Let this stand as a stern warn­ing: any­one who choos­es to con­front law en­force­ment of­fi­cers with vi­o­lence will be met with pro­por­tion­ate and law­ful force. Our of­fi­cers are well trained un­der the use of force pol­i­cy to neu­tralise threats to life. They act not on­ly with pro­fes­sion­al­ism but with re­solve and they do so with my full and un­equiv­o­cal sup­port.”

He added, “To our of­fi­cers: I stand with you, shoul­der to shoul­der. I know first-hand the bur­den of walk­ing in­to dan­ger. I, too, have faced the fire of a weapon drawn in hos­til­i­ty, and I’ve had to de­fend my­self and oth­ers. So, when I speak of courage and sac­ri­fice, I do so from a place of lived ex­pe­ri­ence and deep re­spect.”

Gue­var­ro called on his of­fi­cers to re­main vig­i­lant and unit­ed.

“To all crim­i­nal el­e­ments, I urge you to de­sist now. This path you are on leads to on­ly one end, and it is one that will not be in your favour. The TTPS will not re­treat and we will not re­lent. We will pre­serve peace and pro­tect the lives of our cit­i­zens.”