The two men killed by po­lice in a fa­tal shoot­ing in Va­len­cia on Wednes­day have been iden­ti­fied as De­shawn Brown, of Tumpuna Road, Ari­ma; and Stephon Lopez (AKA Stephen Perkins), of Co­corite Road, Ari­ma.

Mean­while, a third man who was killed by po­lice dur­ing an al­leged con­fronta­tion at Or­ange Grove Road South, Tacarigua—al­so on Wednes­day —re­mained uniden­ti­fied yes­ter­day.

Brown and Perkins were al­leged­ly con­front­ed by of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit around 4.50 pm, as they re­spond­ed to in­for­ma­tion that the oc­cu­pants of a car were trans­port­ing firearms along the Va­len­cia Old Road.

It was al­leged that as of­fi­cers in­ter­cept­ed the car, the oc­cu­pants opened fire, prompt­ing the of­fi­cers to re­turn fire.

Brown and Perkins were in­jured and tak­en to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, where they were pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

Six­ty-three spent 9mm shell cas­ings; five spent 12-gauge car­tridges; one Tau­rus re­volver with three live and three spent .38 shells; and one pis­tol with one mag­a­zine con­tain­ing six live 9mm rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were found in the car. Al­so found in the car were sev­er­al bank cards, an NIB card and a dri­ver’s per­mit in Brown’s name.

Lopez was said to have been a sus­pect in the 2024 mur­der of prison of­fi­cer Kendell Smith at Sama­roo Vil­lage, Ari­ma.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions yes­ter­day on the in­crease in gang ac­tiv­i­ty in the area, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cial said, “I can con­firm that law en­force­ment has been mon­i­tor­ing the ac­tiv­i­ties of sev­er­al known crim­i­nal groups op­er­at­ing with­in the broad­er East­ern Di­vi­sion, in­clu­sive of the San­gre Grande area.”

The of­fi­cer added, “These en­ti­ties are dy­nam­ic in struc­ture and of­ten main­tain in­for­mal as­so­ci­a­tions with oth­er crim­i­nal net­works out­side of the im­me­di­ate ge­o­graph­ic area.”

Asked if Brown and Lopez were known as­so­ciates of any par­tic­u­lar crim­i­nal gang, the of­fi­cial re­spond­ed, “With spe­cif­ic re­gard to the two de­ceased in­di­vid­u­als in the re­cent po­lice-in­volved in­ci­dent, I am ad­vised that there are in­di­ca­tions that they may have been as­so­ci­at­ed with in­di­vid­u­als from Cara­po, who them­selves have known af­fil­i­a­tions or op­er­a­tional links to var­i­ous crim­i­nal el­e­ments, some of whom in­ter­sect with gangs op­er­at­ing out of the East­ern Di­vi­sion.”