As in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to an at­tack that left 71-year-old sur­geon Dr Dorothy Williams-Chan­dler in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, for­mer head of the T&T Med­ical Board Dr Neil Singh is urg­ing med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers to ex­er­cise cau­tion in all of their ac­tiv­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter dark.

Af­ter leav­ing an event with her hus­band, Williams-Chan­dler was dri­ving on Daniel Street, off Mendez Street, Champs Fleurs, just af­ter mid­night on Sat­ur­day, when gun­men in a white Nis­san Wag­on drove on the road in front of her Toy­ota Rav4, block­ing her path.

The gun­men shot Williams-Chan­dler six times, wound­ing her.

Her hus­band was un­harmed.

An off-du­ty prison of­fi­cer who was dri­ving right be­hind her was al­so shot at by the gun­men; how­ev­er, he pulled out his ser­vice-is­sued pis­tol and re­turned fire, killing one of the at­tack­ers, who has since been iden­ti­fied as Adam Wheel­er of Bel­mont.

The sec­ond sus­pect es­caped the scene and re­mained on the run up to yes­ter­day.

Po­lice said that Williams-Chan­dler and her hus­band were leav­ing a sport­ing com­plex on Daniel Street at the time of the at­tack.

They said Williams-Chan­dler un­der­went surgery on Sat­ur­day morn­ing as she was shot in one of her eyes.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors sus­pect that Williams-Chan­dler was tar­get­ed by the gun­men for an at­tempt­ed rob­bery as her move­ments were be­ing mon­i­tored close­ly, not­ing that they knew where to wait be­fore stag­ing their at­tack.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, for­mer head of the T&T Med­ical Board Dr Neil Singh lament­ed the in­ci­dent. He not­ed that he lived near the area where Williams-Chan­dler was shot and was con­cerned about the un­pre­dictable na­ture of crim­i­nals who could strike when their vic­tims least ex­pect­ed it.

He said that while the at­tack did not hap­pen while Williams-Chan­dler was on the job as a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al, Singh said the fact that crim­i­nals had time to wait and am­bush her was un­set­tling.

“My ad­vice to med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers who work or so­cialise at night, there are risks in­volved in where you go, be care­ful of where you go and who you go with, and be mind­ful of peo­ple watch­ing you. It’s clear this la­dy was be­ing watched, and we must be mind­ful of this and ed­u­cate our­selves, our com­mu­ni­ty, and fam­i­ly to be more cau­tious in how we con­duct our busi­ness.”

Singh added that be­fore the at­tack on Williams-Chan­dler, he felt the area was gen­er­al­ly safe and lament­ed that, de­spite so many peo­ple be­ing in the area for a sport­ing event that evening, ban­dits still felt em­bold­ened enough to strike.

Out­go­ing head of the North-Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Vern­ly Gift, said that while the sit­u­a­tion was un­for­tu­nate, the po­lice were work­ing on sev­er­al the­o­ries as to the mo­tive for the shoot­ing.

“Now we are al­most at the end of the long week­end and not on­ly a long week­end, but this was a month when we know the crim­i­nals are al­ways on the prowl, but not with­stand­ing that, the TTPS wants to give the as­sur­ance to the com­mu­ni­ty that our high vis­i­bil­i­ty will be main­tained and we con­tin­ue to strive to en­sure in my di­vi­sion will re­main safe.”

Gift said that while he has been as­signed to a new unit and is ex­pect­ed to be­gin as­sign­ment there from Tues­day, he said di­vi­sion­al of­fi­cers were aware of the ar­eas that were in need of ad­di­tion­al at­ten­tion from the po­lice.

Gift urged the pub­lic to be alert and vig­i­lant as they trav­el af­ter dark, not­ing that while the po­lice will main­tain a height­ened pres­ence through­out the In­de­pen­dence Day hol­i­day on Mon­day, peo­ple should al­so be mind­ful of their sur­round­ings.