Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A gun­man was killed and a doc­tor wound­ed dur­ing a failed am­bush and rob­bery in Champs Fleurs ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, when an off-du­ty prison of­fi­cer in­ter­vened, po­lice said.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed that Dr Dorothy Williams-Chan­dler was dri­ving her grey Toy­ota RAV4 with a male rel­a­tive af­ter leav­ing an event just af­ter mid­night. While on Daniel Dri­ve, off Mendez Dri­ve, their path was blocked by a white Nis­san wag­on. Two armed men in dark cloth­ing got out and opened fire on her ve­hi­cle, hit­ting Williams-Chan­dler.

An off-du­ty prison of­fi­cer, who was dri­ving be­hind her, saw the at­tack. As the gun­men turned their at­ten­tion to him, he drew his ser­vice-is­sued pis­tol and re­turned fire, killing one sus­pect while the oth­er es­caped in the car.

Williams-Chan­dler’s rel­a­tive rushed her to hos­pi­tal, where she was ward­ed in se­ri­ous but sta­ble con­di­tion up to yes­ter­day evening. She was shot six times, in­clud­ing once in the face.

Po­lice lat­er iden­ti­fied the de­ceased sus­pect as Adam Wheel­er of Bel­mont. A Tau­rus pis­tol with 11 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion was re­cov­ered near his body, along with 19 spent 9mm shells at the scene.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, speak­ing hours lat­er at an In­de­pen­dence Day awards cer­e­mo­ny in his con­stituen­cy, praised the prison of­fi­cer’s “quick think­ing,” while urg­ing the sur­viv­ing sus­pect to sur­ren­der.

“What we know for sure is that law en­force­ment knows he is armed and dan­ger­ous. If he doesn’t sur­ren­der, his ad­dress might be re­lo­cat­ed to the ceme­tery,” Alexan­der warned.

He said the in­ci­dent un­der­scored the need for Stand Your Ground leg­is­la­tion, which would pro­tect cit­i­zens who de­fend them­selves or oth­ers.

“This man pro­tect­ed his sis­ter, be­cause to­day she is alive,” Alexan­der said.

He al­so lament­ed that young men were be­ing lured in­to crim­i­nal­i­ty by old­er crim­i­nals who viewed them as ex­pend­able.

Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don al­so weighed in, say­ing the in­ci­dent high­light­ed the im­por­tance of of­fi­cers be­ing armed even while off du­ty.

“They turned their guns at him, and he was able to de­fend him­self. It speaks to the fact that we have very re­spon­si­ble, hard­work­ing of­fi­cers. All we ask is that they be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­tect them­selves and those around them,” Gor­don said.

He ex­tend­ed sym­pa­thies to Williams-Chan­dler and her fam­i­ly, wish­ing her a full re­cov­ery.

“Thank God for sav­ing her by hav­ing the of­fi­cer at the right time to pre­vent what might have been her last day on earth,” he said.

Of­fi­cers of the St. Joseph CID are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries.