KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

It was a trau­mat­ic morn­ing for a Ma­yaro fam­i­ly on Mon­day, af­ter armed ban­dits stormed their home. How­ev­er, a quick re­sponse from po­lice left four of sev­en gun­men dead.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob con­firmed last evening that East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice were search­ing for three oth­er sus­pects who es­caped through bush­es af­ter po­lice killed four of their co­horts.

Po­lice said one of the vic­tims, the own­er of a Chi­nese restau­rant, left his home in the gat­ed Krista Park com­mu­ni­ty to drop his daugh­ter to school but when he re­turned home around 9.30 am, he found his wife and 17-year-old son on the ground with their hands tied and tape over their mouths. The gun­men ap­proached him with­in sec­onds and or­dered him to the floor.

How­ev­er, po­lice had al­ready re­ceived a tip-off about the home in­va­sion and of­fi­cers from the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion, East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force and Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol en­tered the premis­es with­in min­utes.

On ap­proach­ing, the ban­dits shot at the of­fi­cers, who re­tal­i­at­ed with gun­fire of their own, killing four of the men.

Three oth­er ban­dits ran through the back and jumped over the fence at the back of the com­mu­ni­ty. Po­lice said the ban­dits en­tered the prop­er­ty by jump­ing over a wall on the east­ern side.

Res­i­dents were said to be trau­ma­tised by the in­ci­dent, as the ban­dits re­mained on the com­pound for hours be­fore they were or­dered re­moved by the DMO.

Ja­cob said none of the vic­tims suf­fered in­juries be­fore or dur­ing the shootout. The ban­dits did not es­cape with any of the fam­i­ly’s be­long­ings.

Ja­cob said po­lice were us­ing an Ac­tive Di­rect­ed Grid Pa­trol method to se­cure their dis­trict. He said the re­spond­ing of­fi­cers were there­fore al­ready out on strate­gic pa­trols and were able to re­spond in quick time.

“This is what we are do­ing now. Every di­vi­sion will de­vel­op in such a way to han­dle sit­u­a­tions on its own and we will give them the tools and re­sources to man­age, and we will hold the di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders ac­count­able. Yes, oth­er sec­tions will come in­to sup­port, but di­vi­sions will have the au­ton­o­my to man­age them­selves; sim­ply mean­ing that we are mov­ing away from sec­tion­al­i­sa­tion to di­vi­sion­al work,” Ja­cob said.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds com­mend­ed the Po­lice Ser­vice while con­tribut­ing to the 2023 Bud­get yes­ter­day, say­ing that every­one should note its suc­cess in its re­sponse to crime.

“You saw it in La Ro­main. You saw it again this morn­ing in Ma­yaro. Every­one in this coun­try must know the po­lice are on high alert, high­ly trained, ready and re­spon­sive, and I want to com­mend the Po­lice Ser­vice for the kind of work in stand­ing in de­fence of the peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go,” Hinds said.

Yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent came less than two weeks af­ter po­lice killed Greg Dodough, 21, Kyle Ramd­han, 23, Key­on Ramd­han, 22 and Deaun­dre Mon­trose, 22, in a shootout on Sep­tem­ber 19. The shootout oc­curred min­utes af­ter the men mur­dered Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices’ es­tate con­sta­bles Jer­ry Stu­art and Jef­frey Pe­ters out­side Pen­ny­wise Plaza in La Ro­main.

The four ban­dits were among six who opened fire on the of­fi­cers’ pick-up, af­ter they col­lect­ed cash at Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics. The shoot­ing al­so left Es­tate Con­sta­ble Pe­o­la Bap­tiste with life-threat­en­ing in­juries.